Vancouver-based Bench, which automates accounting for small businesses, announced the close of a $20 million CAD Series B ($16 million USD).
The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures and joined by Altos Ventures and Contour Venture Partners; the latter two investors were also Series A participants in Bench. The funding will go toward significant product enhancements and the rollout of a new product, the nature of which the company wouldn’t disclose. Continuing to hire Canada’s top design and software engineering talent will also remain as a focus for the company.
“This capital allows us to remove any constraints to ensuring our culture and environments can flourish as we undergo this rapid employee growth,” said Ian Crosby.
The new round brings Bench’s total capital raised to $33 million. The company says that by creating task-specific algorithms and perfecting tools that can work seamlessly with bank data and payment data, Bench has reduced the labour time of its bookkeepers by 75 percent.
“Bench is capturing the attention of people who grew up with the Internet and who seek convenient cloud and mobile solutions to eliminate unwanted tasks. BCV was impressed with the level of scalability Bench has achieved and is excited by the chance to back an important new SMB platform,” said Indy Guha, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures and a Bench board member.
Since its $7 million Series A funding announcement in January 2015, Bench has doubled its workforce in Vancouver to 230 employees while expanding its service to thousands of small businesses across the US.