A Vancouver tech company specializing in locking down tax credits for other firms has a little extra money of its own to boast about.
Boast Capital Ltd. (Boast.AI) revealed Thursday (December 10) the close of a Series A funding round, drawing $30 million from investors.
Since its founding in 2011, the firm says it has secured $200 million in tax credits for 1,000 customers using Boast.AI’s platform to simplify the process of claiming incentives in Canada and the U.S.
Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credits are the prime target of Boast.AI’s platform for Canadian companies looking to fund R&D efforts.
Eligible projects range from basic research to experimental development.
However, the application processes is often considered onerous for companies, especially early-stage companies that may have limited resources.
The platform works by integrating with clients’ payroll providers and financial systems, using artificial intelligence to determine which work would be eligible for the incentives while reducing the risk of an audit.
“We try to minimize the time that we take from a company's technical staff and executive resources so that they can focus on building, and growing and scaling their team,” co-founder and CEO Alex Popa told BIV.
He said clients range from startups with only a small team of engineers to large multinationals.
But in the vast majority of cases, clients are high-growth companies, according to Popa.
The plan now is to use the new investment capital to double the company headcount from 35 to 70 over the next year.
Popa said the hiring will be aimed at engineering, sales, marketing and executive leadership.
About half of Boast.AI’s employees are based in Vancouver, with the remaining spread out between offices in Calgary, Toronto and San Francisco.
