How Wave Hit $42M in ARR Doing FinTech for SMBs

If you’re a small business owner, odds are that you’re not passionate about things like invoicing, accounting, or payroll. And while these functions are all critical to your business, you’re likely much more concerned with doing that things that make you unique and help you drive more top-line revenue.

Wave was created to assist busy small business owners by giving them better financing options and software. Their free and paid software is helping empower small business owners and simplifying their lives with accounting, invoicing, payroll, and payment tools.

How much is Wave doing in MRR?

Wave is freemium SaaS product that offers invoicing and accounting software for free and monetizes with subscriptions to their premium features. On average, customers pay them between $70 and $100 each month.

According to CEO Kirk Simpson, Wave is serving tens of thousands of customers right now and is doing north of $42M in ARR. The company is nearly doubling year over year with a growth rate between 80% and 100%.

What is Wave’s churn?

Churn is typically a contentious point in the SMB SaaS business, but Wave seems to have customer retention solved. Simpson noted that the company is exhibiting monthly logo churn of less than 2% right now. He explained that once companies connect their bank accounts and send their first invoice, they typically become sticky.

With no sales team in place, 85% of Wave’s new customers are coming through organic channels today. The company’s freemium tool, along with strong SEO, is driving a majority of customer acquisition today.

How much has Wave raised?

In total, Wave has raised $100M in venture capital to date. Simpson believes that there is a still a tremendous opportunity to develop additional products within this space and is investing significantly in research and development to fund their creation.

Going forward, Wave’s team of 200 employees in Toronto are aiming to cross $50M in ARR in early 2019 and evaluating potential acquisitions going forward.