Wave Accounting Inc. has just closed $5 million in financing, in a Series A round led by Charles River Ventures, with the participation of OMERS Ventures. The financing will be used by the company to continue the development of its free online accounting software for small businesses and market it internationally.
Wave is a completely free (not freemium, but free) accounting package that supports itself through offers. When a user is logged into their Wave account, there’s a section called “Business Savings.” This screen features offers for business-related needs like business cards, web hosting, credit card processing services and more. American Express, Dell and Grand & Toy are among several dozen advertising partners to date.
The online app offers double-entry accounting, financial dashboards, invoicing tools, expense tracking and a suite of reports, but it can also be used by those who don’t need or want full accounting reporting. The setup process is easy, too – Wave imports data from your bank accounts, credit cards, etc., so there’s no manual entry involved to get started. It then continues to automatically import transactions from a user’s bank account or electronic statement going forward.
Wave is now used by 75,000 small businesses in 198 countries around the world since its launch less than 11 months ago.