Exclusive: SingleFile Raises $9M Series A to Expand Its Corporate Compliance Filing Platform

Final March, I wrote right here about SingleFile, an organization whose mission is to assist companies navigate complicated regulatory environments effortlessly by automating outdated submitting processes and leveraging AI know-how in a unified cloud platform.

In the present day, it took a serious step in driving that mission ahead with information that it has raised $9 million in Collection A funding, bringing its whole funding to $24 million since its founding in 2019, together with $15 million raised previously 12 months.

The spherical was led by VC agency Foundry Group, which participation from present traders together with Pioneer Sq. Labs and The LegalTech Fund, in addition to regulation companies Wilson Sonsini, Cooley, DLA Piper, Fenwick & West, Perkins Coie, and particular person legal professionals from the agency Okay&L Gates.

“This new spherical of funding marks a big milestone for SingleFile as we proceed to revolutionize the best way companies and their trusted advisers deal with ever-increasing and repetitive compliance burdens,” mentioned Aaron Finn, SingleFile’s CEO.

The Seattle-based firm firm will use the funding primarily to broaden its know-how platform and scale operations, with a selected give attention to analysis and improvement to convey extra compliance capabilities to its platform, Finn mentioned.

The corporate has additionally expanded its government workforce, including Mindy Lauck as chief product officer and Teresa Kotwis as chief monetary officer. Lauck has been a CEO and product chief at a number of corporations, whereas Kotwis likewise has been CFO at quite a lot of startups and established corporations.

Digital Compliance Platform

The corporate, which spun out of Pioneer Sq. Labs’ Seattle incubator in 2019, serves regulation companies, companies and investor companies with a digital platform for submitting and monitoring annual studies and different state-required filings. It additionally presents entity administration and resident agent companies. 

Final 12 months, in anticipation of the helpful possession submitting necessities beneath the Company Transparency Act taking impact, the corporate launched a module particularly for CTA reporting.  The CTA requirement helped the corporate’s enterprise pipeline “blow up,” Finn instructed me final March.

Regardless of present uncertainty round CTA implementation resulting from numerous authorized challenges, Finn mentioned the corporate continues to see substantial progress, notably in relation to CTA compliance. In actual fact, it skilled its most vital progress since inception throughout November and December, with utilization by regulation companies rising greater than threefold in comparison with the earlier 12 months.

“Even with the CTA uncertainty that occurred throughout that point, it was nonetheless numerous progress for us and numerous prospects desirous to get filed earlier than that authentic deadline and a few simply desirous to get able to file,” Finn mentioned in an interview.

He mentioned the corporate continues to realize vital traction within the authorized market, and now serves greater than 60 regulation companies, together with 33 Am Regulation 200 companies, and greater than 4,000 prospects total.

One System of Report

However as a lot because the CTA has been a boon to SingleFile’s enterprise, Finn emphasizes that it isn’t its solely enterprise and even the vast majority of its enterprise.

“We consider that your whole data, your whole authorized entity data, must be maintained in a single system of report in order that when data modifications, it may replace any compliance filings which might be required,” he mentioned.

The corporate positions itself as bringing fashionable know-how to what has historically been a handbook, paper-intensive business.

“The entire thesis of our firm is that fashionable know-how may also help take the handbook paperwork burden out of this business,” Finn mentioned. “We’re seeing it actually blossom with CTA, mixed with submitting and registered agent companies.”

Prospects notably profit from the SingleFile’s cloud-native platform, Finn believes.

“As a result of we’re utilizing cloud-based know-how, it permits any of the constituents which might be concerned in these compliance filings to have the ability to take part, whereas the corporate maintains the info in a single place and has that system of report.”

‘A Generational Enterprise’

Jaclyn Freeman Hester, associate at Foundry Group, cited the corporate’s “sticky product” and strategic distribution mannequin as components within the resolution to steer the spherical. “SingleFile has the makings of a generational enterprise — a sticky product that’s delivering distinctive worth to prospects, a strategic distribution mannequin, and best-in-class SaaS metrics,” she mentioned.

The corporate plans to make use of the brand new funding to broaden past its present choices into extra compliance areas. Finn indicated that prospects have requested capabilities for blue sky filings, SEC filings, and enterprise licensing, amongst different compliance necessities which might be usually dealt with manually or by way of consultants.

“We simply need to maintain bringing an increasing number of of this compliance work into our automation and into our clever community.”

Whereas regulation companies are a major channel for SingleFile’s companies, the corporate’s enterprise mannequin usually includes constructing direct relationships with the regulation companies’ shoppers. The exception is in personal wealth or personal shopper teams at regulation companies, the place the companies themselves grow to be the direct shoppers.

‘Jurisdictional Intelligence’

SingleFile competes with conventional gamers within the registered agent and authorized submitting business similar to CT Company, owned by Wolters Kluwer, and CSC International. The corporate differentiates itself by way of what Finn describes as its “jurisdictional intelligence” — a cloud-native infrastructure that helps authorized entities registered throughout a number of jurisdictions perceive and preserve their compliance necessities.

“Take into consideration all the federal government companies which have all these necessities that companies must comply with,” Finn mentioned. “… How will we go and take all this jurisdictional intelligence and convey it into one system that’s good sufficient to know and examine and guarantee that any authorized entity that could be registered in a number of jurisdictions throughout the globe is aware of what compliance necessities they need to comply with to take care of good standing.”

Wanting forward, Finn sees alternatives to broaden the platform’s capabilities to handle the broader panorama of company compliance necessities.

He mentioned the federal Workplace of Administration and Funds has estimated that compliance with federal code paperwork necessities alone creates over 10 billion hours of burden yearly on the U.S. financial system, with a good portion falling on companies — and that determine doesn’t embody all of the state codes a enterprise has to comply with.

“You’re speaking tens of billions of hours of non-tax compliance work that needs to be completed simply within the U.S. alone for a whole bunch of thousands and thousands — 40 million to 100 million —  authorized entities,” Finn mentioned. “You’re speaking about a number of paperwork burden for lots of people.”