Login
iscover
Xero has secured an additional $142 million in capital, bringing its cash balance to around $274 million, and appointed a senior executive to drive global growth.
Xero secures massive capital boost, appoints high profile exec
25 February 2015
•
1 minute read
The capital injection comes from two US venture capital firms, Accel Partners ($128m) and Matrix Capital Management ($14m).
While this is the first investment made in Xero by Accel Partners, Matrix Capital is currently the tech company’s largest institutional investor. The investment by Accel Partners has been made through a number of individual funds under its management.
Xero chief executive Rod Drury said he welcomes Accel Partners as strategic investors in Xero, and is delighted with Matrix’s continued support.
Xero has said it will use the proceeds from the issue of the shares to fuel continued innovation and growth globally and specifically to drive its growth in the United States and United Kingdom.
While announcing the capital raising, Xero also announced the appointment of former Dell executive Russell Fujioka to the US and global leadership team, serving as Xero’s US president. The company said Mr Fujioka brings to Xero significant experience in sales, digital marketing and operational management of high-growth technology businesses.
Mr Drury said Xero’s ability to attract such capital and such talent reflects the firms position in the global accounting software market.
“Our ability to attract capital and leadership of this calibre is testament to our success and our potential to become the small business SaaS platform of choice for entrepreneurs around the globe,” Mr Drury said.
Andrew Braccia, partner at Accel, said the firm is excited by Xero's future growth prospects.
“Accel always looks for enduring technologies with global reach and we see the need and opportunity for millions of small businesses to grow on Xero’s platform,” he said.
“We’ve worked with several other leading companies in the region to broaden their global reach and we hope this experience will be valuable as Xero’s strong leadership team looks to expand in the United States.”
Xero also announced Graham Smith has joined the Xero board as an additional independent, non-executive director. Mr Smith brings significant experience scaling SaaS businesses and creating industry leaders from his time as Salesforce’s CFO and as a board member of industry leaders such as Splunk.
