Software startup airSlate Inc., which has 20 employees in Massachusetts, said Wednesday it received $50 million in debt financing from first-time debt investor Silicon Valley Bank.
The new capital comes around a month after the Brookline-based company raised $40 million from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, General Catalyst and HighSage Ventures. At that time, CEO Borya Shakhnovich told the Business Journal that the company was still in the midst of closing an extra $50 million round.
In a new interview, Shakhnovich said that the latest round with Silicon Valley Bank is the biggest debt round that airSlate has raised to date. Silicon Valley Bank is not the first bank to provide debt investment to the company, he said, but declined to provide additional details.
"Debt provides non-dilutive financing for future growth," Shakhnovich said on Tuesday. "It also allows us to have flexibility in when we deploy the money. And when we deploy the cash, it also provides us with the ability to invest in medium- to short-term initiatives ... And I think it fits really well with the recurrent subscription model that airSlate has."
Shakhnovich and Chief Product Officer Vadim Yasinovsky, both immigrants from Eastern Europe, co-founded airSlate in 2012. AirSlate, which provides a software-as-a-service platform that allows businesses to automate document-related tasks and interactions with customers or employees, has raised a total of $130 million in capital.
"There's a lot of potential for us to grow over the next couple of years, as I think digitization automation is taking hold across the planet," Shakhnovich said. "A lot of what we're doing is also international as well as with partners, and so in order to invest in those initiatives, we decided to partner with Silicon Valley Bank."
Shakhnovich added that Massachusetts employees are primarily work from home, as the company will continue offering "optional work from home" for the foreseeable future. But airSlate is also reopening the Brookline office over the next couple of months so that people can come in if they want to, he said.
Mass. top VC deals in 2020: Pitchbook
Rank: #9 (tied)
Company: Cambridge-based EQRx Inc.
Round: $200 million Series A
Date: 1/12/2020
Leading investors: GV, ARCH Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz
Industry: Biotech
Pictured: EQRx Co-Founders are Melanie Nallicheri (left), president and chief operating officer, and Alexis Borisy (right), CEO
Rank: #9 (tied)
Company: Boston-based Snyk Ltd.
Round: $200 million Series D
Date: 9/15/2020
Leading investor: Addition
Industry: Software (security tools for developers)
Pictured: Guy Podjarny (left), founder and president of Snyk, and Peter McKay, CEO
Rank: #8
Company: Boston-based Atea Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Round: $215 million Series D
Date: 5/20/2020
Leading investor: Bain Capital Life Sciences
Industry: Antiviral therapeutics
Rank: #7
Company: Cambridge-based Thrive Earlier Detection Corp.
Round: $257 million Series B
Date: 7/29/2020
Leading investors: Casdin Capital and Section 32
Industry: Cancer blood testing
Pictured: Thrive Earlier Detection Corp. was co-founded by Christoph Lengauer, who helped found Relay Therapeutics and is currently a partner at Third Rock Ventures
Rank: #6
Company: Walpole-based Thrasio Inc.
Round: $260 million Series C
Date: 15/7/2020
Leading investor: Advent International
Industry: E-commerce
Pictured: Carlos Cashman (pictured), co-CEO and co-founder of Thrasio, founded the company in July 2018 with fellow co-CEO and co-founder Joshua Silberstein
Rank: #5
Company: Lexington-based Berkshire Grey
Round: $263 million Series B
Date: 1/21/2020
Leading investors: SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Canaan
Industry: Robotics
Rank: #4
Company: Boston-based DataRobot Inc.
Round: $317 million Series F
Date: 12/9/2020
Leading investor: Altimeter
Industry: Artificial intelligence, enterprise software
Pictured: Igor Taber, senior vice president of corporate development and strategy at DataRobot
Rank: #3
Company: Cambridge-based XtalPi
Round: $318.8 million Series C
Date: 9/28/2020
Leading investors: SoftBank Vision Fund 2, PICC Capital and Morningside
Industry: Artificial intelligence, drug discovery
Rank: #2
Company: Boston-based Toast Inc.
Round: $400 million Series F
Date: 2/14/2020
Leading investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, TPG, Greenoaks Capital and Tiger Global Management
Industry: Restaurant management software
Pictured: From left to right: Toast co-founder and president Steve Fredette; Toast CEO Chris Comparato; Toast co-founder and president Aman Narang; Toast co-founder and chief technology officer, Jonathan Grimm
Rank: #1
Company: Boston-based Indigo Agriculture
Round: $535 million Series F (including $175 million in convertible equity announced in January 2020)
Date: 8/3/2020
Investors: Alaska Permanent Fund, Flagship Pioneering
Industry: Agricultural tech
Pictured: A tractor harvesting Indigo Cotton
