Assent Compliance is Canada’s newest unicorn after raising $446.5 CAD ($350 million USD). The startup claimed the raise is one of the largest in Canadian software company history, and values Assent at more than $1 billion.
Vista Equity Partners, through its Foundation Fund, led the funding round for the supply chain data management startup.
Assent did not disclose the closing date, if there were other investors, or the portion of the round that may be secondary capital.
Assent will use the money to advance its SaaS platform, for expansion in Europe, and to increase its team by 40 percent, hiring in sales, services, engineering, customer success, and marketing. Founded in 2010, the startup has some 600 employees.
Assent claims, in the last year, it expanded its global workforce by 35 percent, and increased annual recurring revenue by more than 50 percent.
Assent helps complex manufacturers identify and manage risk, accelerate market access and growth, and promote brand reputation.
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Vista’s Foundation Fund invests in middle-market companies seeking to scale and accelerate their growth trajectory. Vista’s Patrick Severson, co-head of the Vista Foundation Fund, and Jake Hodgman, managing director of Foundation Fund, will join the Assent board of directors.
Assent landed on the Narwhal List in 2020, one of 42 startups highlighted that year with unicorn potential.
Assent’s billion-dollar status follows League, which in late December 2021, joined a growing list of Canadian tech companies to secure a unicorn valuation in 2021, including Trulioo, Ada, Blockstream, Dapper Labs, Clio, FreshBooks, and Clearco. The marked trend of Canadian tech companies reaching unicorn status is a fairly new one for the Canadian startup landscape. Prior to 2019, Canada struggled to produce unicorn companies.
This marks Assent’s third funding round in three years, the company has secured around $630 million to date.
Previously, Assent raised over $131 million CAD in a Series C round from Warburg Pincus in 2018. In July 2017, Assent Compliance raised a $40 million Series B to hire 100 employees. That followed Assent’s $20 million Series A round in 2016.
The startup was bootstrapped until its $1 million seed round in 2014.
Assent has offices in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Malaysia.