As the digital economy continues to grow across the globe, so too is the need for automated compliance. This has, unsurprisingly, given rise, of course, to competition among sales tax compliance automation applications.
The latest recipient of a financial boost in this space is Anrok, a global sales tax platform for software companies, which has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and others, including Karen Peacock, former CEO of Intercom, David Faugno, former CFO of Qualtrics and current president of 1Password, Alex Estevez, former CFO of Atlassian, and Elad Gil.
Much like its competitors, Anrok was built to solve the sales tax problem for hundreds of software companies with an end-to-end solution for monitoring, calculating, collecting, and filing taxes. In the past year, the company has expanded its platform with a reconciliation tool, advanced tax exemption certificate management, and support for VAT and GST compliance in every country that taxes remote sellers of software or digital products.
The company claims to have managed compliance for over $7 billion of revenue in the past year alone. With this new funding, the company says it will keep investing in R&D and product development to continue building an all-in-one global tax compliance platform for modern finance teams.
It’s no surprise that investments continue to be made in tools for sales tax compliance, which, if you are at all familiar with the process, is as daunting as it is essential to any business that sells goods domestically or internationally.
From the earliest days of businesses like SpeedTax (which was later purchased by CCH) and Avalara, the global need for products that can simplify the process has given rise to the likes of:
Vertex
TaxJar
Yonda
TaxValet
Lovat
Sovos
Quaderno
SureTax(CCH)
ONESOURCE(Thomson Reuters)
TaxCloud
Zamp
If any technology space was ripe for consolidation (outside of, perhaps, AP automation), it’s this one. But until sales tax compliance actually becomes more simplified, these tools will have their place. And, as we know, when it comes to software preferences, everyone will have their own flavor they prefer.