A Reston-based accounting software firm is quietly deepening its own pocketbook.
LeaseAccelerator, which makes software for enterprise lease accounting, expects to quadruple both its revenue and its client list this year as it expands internationally. Its most recent step in that direction: a $30 million investment from New York-based Insight Venture Partners.
LeaseAccelerator programs help businesses manage leases beyond the typical real estate negotiations: In addition to factories, offices and warehouses, it helps finance and manage equipment leases ranging from laptops and photocopiers to planes and machinery.
CEO Michael Keeler said the Series B funding will be used for product development, automated online training services and investment in customer service.
San-Francisco based Atlas Technology Group was LeaseAccelerator’s financial advisor in the deal. Keeler said there were several bids after the company started seeking investors in February, but Insight stood out for its emphasis on portfolio companies’ customer service and its track record:
“They only invest in market leaders, not second or third tier,” he said. “They really want the top player in the market.”
The funding comes as the firm gears up for changes to lease accounting standards, which begin Jan. 1 next year and will require companies to more frequently record leases as assets and liabilities.
Founded in 2003, LeaseAccelerator released its first global accounting software in 2012 and has quietly grown into a niche powerhouse since then. Its Series A round in 2015 raked in $6.2 million, led by GRI in Baltimore. It’s taken on $3.5 million in debt from BridgeBank in more recent years, Keeler said.
"Most people will hire a broker to optimize their economic decisions when they need to grow... We created the same marketplace platform for equipment leasing, and we’ve automated it."
He said the company tripled its revenue and quadrupled its client list in the last year, and expects to quadruple both those totals again in 2018.
One of LeaseAccelerator’s more unique features is a competitive marketplace network that brings together lessors and lessees. A client can put out lease proposals on its software and 500-plus banks, lessors and financiers can then bid on the contract.
“Most people will hire a broker to optimize their economic decisions when they need to grow,” Keeler said. “We created the same marketplace platform for equipment leasing, and we’ve automated it.”
He said the company averages 7 percent savings on any given asset for customers.
Peter Sobiloff, managing director at Insight, said in an email statement that the investment was an opportunity to back a growing market’s lead vendor:
“Lease accounting standards are higher than ever coupled with demands to meet timelines more quickly than before… LeaseAccelerator fits into the Insight portfolio seamlessly as a fast-growing enterprise B2B software company that solves a meaningful problem in its market.”
He said other Insight investments in the DMV area include CloudBolt, Thycotic and Tenable, which recently filed to go public.
LeaseAccelerator clients include Cisco, Cummins, Tyson Foods and Netflix, among a long list of industry giants. The company’s partners, which work with clients to implement its software, include PwC, Vaco and SAP.
Of the firm’s 115 employees, 55 work in the Reston headquarters, Keeler said. Its local client list includes General Dynamics, as well as Brinks and Owens & Minor in Richmond.
