With $630 billion worth of retail sales projected to happen in the U.S. during this holiday season, it’s the time of year that governments fill their coffers with tax.
And there’s one company quickly becoming a technology of choice for easily and accurately calculating those taxes and creating returns on behalf of retailers (and even Etsy shops) everywhere. It’s called Avalara and it’s fast on its way to employing 350 people on downtown Durham’s American Tobacco Campus.
It’s the busiest time of year for the Seattle-headquartered tax software company that opened up shop in Durham less than two years ago. But that’d be hard to believe considering what seems to be constant speed of acquisitions, hires and new clients.
Today, Cyber Monday, the company will process 50 million transactions, representing a 100 percent increase in traffic over the same day last year. The growth is a result of $142 million in private equity raised over the last year, which allowed for acquisitions of a telecom tax compliance company in Kansas City, a European business tax software company from Belgium and lodging tax solutions provider from Denver, along with new vendor partnerships and product announcements. It’s also prompted IPO speculation.
A significant portion of all of that growth is happening in Durham, where a fifth of Avalara’s entire workforce spends its days and where any job open within the company can be housed. It’s also where an entrepreneur with several startups under his belt is running several Avalara businesses and ensuring an office culture that is both mission-oriented and fun, a quality he says is missing from most tax software companies.
