Online accounting software company FreeAgent secures £2M+ investment
Online accounting pioneers FreeAgent, founded by tech-savvy former freelancers Ed Molyneux, Olly Headey and Roan Lavery, have secured an investment of more than £2M to further accelerate their rapid growth. The new investment - led by SM Trust working with Torch Partners as well as existing investors - is the fourth external investment since FreeAgent was founded in 2007 and brings the total outside investment in the company to over £3M.
Ed Molyneux, FreeAgent CEO said: “We’re really pleased that the success of FreeAgent to date has enabled us to attract such a significant investment, and excited about the new opportunities this opens up to us to accelerate our growth even more.
“The genuine enthusiasm our customers have for FreeAgent and our focus on simplifying their business finances, have been instrumental in attracting both channel and business partners, as well as hugely influential investment partners. It’s particularly exciting to bring on board investors like SM Trust who share our own vision to ‘Democratise Accounting’.”
Building an ecosystem of strong business partnerships has been a critical factor in FreeAgent’s success to date. Molyneux explained “The FreeAgent platform allows channel partners and software developers alike to benefit from our rapid growth, and this investment further confirms the market-leading position of that platform.”
FreeAgent is an online bookkeeping and accounting system already used by over 12,000 freelancers and small businesses. It enables users to take control of their business finances and doesn’t use confusing accounting jargon. Customers can send invoices, track time and expenses, analyse bank statements and build real-time accounts as well as use it to predict their future tax bills.
Fred Coorevits from SM Trust will join the board of FreeAgent as a non-executive director. He commented: “It was clear to us that SME accounting software was sorely in need of re-invention. FreeAgent is far and away the most innovative and visionary company in that space, and we’re really excited to be working together to redefine the accounting software market.”
With the latest investment FreeAgent plans to significantly expand its engineering team to accelerate product development, and to grow its customer support team to allow it to maintain a high standard of customer service as user numbers dramatically increase. The company also plans to invest in significantly larger scale business development, partnership and marketing initiatives.
Ed Molyneux added: “In many ways we’re only just getting started, and there’s so much more we want to do in terms of new features that really help to take the pain out of accounting for our customers. This investment will enable us to accelerate our development by bringing on board more world-class engineers and designers. FreeAgent has come a long way since it was founded in 2007. This latest investment means we can move forward with our ambitious plans but we’ll also be working really hard to ensure we don’t sacrifice the quality of service or dilute the amazing culture of the company.”
