Online accounting software company Xero has raised $110.8m in investments from Accel Partners and Matrix Capital Management.
Accel Partners, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalist firms, has agreed to invest $100m, while Xero’s largest institutional investor Matrix Capital Management has agreed to spend an additional $10.8m.
This latest investment will be used to fund global growth, but specifically to drive its growth in the United Kingdom and United States.
Xero CEO Rod Drury said:
“We welcome Accel as strategic investors in Xero, and are delighted with Matrix’s continued support.
“Our ability to attract capital of this calibre is testament to our success and our potential to become the small business SaaS platform of choice for entrepreneurs around the globe.”
Gary Turner, Xero’s UK managing director, said: “Cloud adoption in the United Kingdom is now at a defined tipping point and having secured a clear position as the UK’s market leader in cloud accounting today, we’re excited by the prospect of further investing to enable us to capture a significant share of the UK’s five million businesses as they move to adopt cloud technology.
“This new investment, in combination with our recent move to extend Xero’s appeal to British businesses by introducing full UK Payroll capability from next month, and the fact that we now have direct technical partnerships with most of the UK’s leading banks, I believe sets us up well for the next phase of growth.”
Andrew Braccia, partner at Accel, added:
“Accel always looks for enduring technologies with global reach and we see the need and opportunity for millions of small businesses to grow on Xero’s platform. We’ve worked with several other leading companies in the region to broaden their global reach and we hope this experience will be valuable as Xero’s strong leadership team looks to expand in the United States.”
Xero has also announced key appointments to support its continued growth in the US market, with Russell Fujioka as its U.S. president, and Graham Smith to its board of directors as an additional independent, non-executive director.
Fujioka will commence his new position effective immediately, based at Xero’s US headquarters in San Francisco. He brings significant experience in sales, digital marketing and operational management of high growth businesses.
Smith brings significant experience of scaling SaaS businesses and creating industry leaders from his time as Salesforce’s chief financial officer. His appointment is effective immediately.