Kirk Simpson is the co-founder and CEO of Wave, a provider of cloud-based, integrated software and business management tools for small businesses & entrepreneurs
Early life and education
Kirk Simpson was born in 1974. Simpson attended the University of Guelph to study commerce. Simpson has completed three years before leaving to pursue entrepreneurial pursuits with AdventureLifestyle.com.
Early career
At the age of 23, Simpson launched adventurelifestyle.com in 1997, after dropping out of college. The site served people to arrange extreme adventure trips, such as bungee jumping excursions. Adventurelifestyle.com was largely self-funded, with some angel financing. Simpson and his buddy hired five more employees (friends) before it folded in 2000. Simpson blames the failure on his youthful naiveté, among other things.
From 2000 – 2010, after his first venture, Simpson worked in several companies, such as a Business Development Director at St. Joseph Media, Strategic Alliances Director at Canoe.ca, and as Vice President at Green Living Enterprises. Simpson was also part of the board member at Sustainability Network for over two years.
In 2007, Simpson launched his second startup outdoorsica.com, which has a similar concept to adventurelifestyle.com. By then, Simpson had a decade of real-world experience and connections through working in Toronto’s media world. But revenue figures weren’t that impressive, which Simpson blames on the next major lesson he learned: that one need real passion to make something work. Outdoorsica was sold in 2011.
Wave
In July 2009, Simpson and James Lochrie launched Wave Accounting Inc. Wave Accounting, a company that offers a suite of online software and financial services for small businesses, launched to the public on November 16, 2010. The company is headquartered in the Leslieville neighborhood in Toronto, Canada. Simpson is Wave’s CEO while Lochrie as CPO.
In 2010, Wave launched the first available double-entry accounting platform in the cloud, which covered vast bank data downloads. Wave officially introduced Wave Payroll to the public in Canada in February 2012, and in November of the same year, a release in America followed. In December 2012 the company rebranded itself to emphasize its broadened spectrum of services as Wave.
The company runs more than $244 billion in revenue and expense transactions for its customers, including an annual invoicing of $16 billion. Wave’s first product was a free online software designed for businesses with less than ten employees, followed by personal finance, invoicing, and receipt-scanning software (OCR). In 2012, the company started branching into financial services, initially with Payments by Wave (credit card processing) and Payroll by Wave, followed in February 2017, by Lending by Wave.
Funding Rounds
In December 2010, Wave raised $1.5 million in a seed round from its lead investor OMERS Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in technology, media, and telecommunications companies. In September 2011, FedDev Ontario invested $1 million in funding.
In October 2011, Wave closed $5 million in a Series A round led by Charles River Ventures, with the participation of OMERS Ventures. The investment was used to continue the development of its free online accounting software for small businesses and market it internationally.
In May 2012, Wave closed $12 million in a Series B round funding, led by The Social+Capital Partnership (s23p), along with existing investors including Charles River Ventures and OMERS Ventures. With the funding, Wave planned to continue aggressively increasing headcount, in engineering as well as sales and business development.
In October 2013, Wave raised $6 million in a venture funding from existing investors including Social Capital, OMERS Ventures, and Charles River Ventures. In May 2015, Wave closed a $10 million Series C investment from lead investor Charles River Ventures, and existing investors include The Social+Capital Partnership and OMERS Ventures. Other investors include OurCrowd, and BDC Venture Capital has participated in this round.
In December 2015, Wave raised $5.2 million in another venture round. In May 2016, Wave attracted a $6.7 million investment from BDC Capital Corporation as its lead investor, and BDC Venture Capital also participated in this round. In October 2016, Wave raised $14.6 million in venture funding, led by BDC’s IT Venture Fund with the participation from Charles River Ventures, HarbourVest, and The Social+Capital Partnership.
In May 2017, Wave closed CA$32 million from National Australia Bank (NAB) Ventures, Portag3 Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), and Exhibition Capital. Existing investors, including BDC IT Venture Fund, BDC Capital Corporation, Charles River Ventures, The Social+Capital Partnership, OMERS Ventures, HarbourVest, and OurCrowd, also participated in this round.
Wave has raised a total of $79.5 million in funding over nine rounds.
Acquisitions
In November 2011, Wave acquired Small Payroll, a company which was later launched as a payroll product called Wave Payroll. In August 2012, Wave announced the acquisition of Vuru.co, an online stock-tracking service for an undisclosed amount. In March 2019, Wave acquired Every, a FinTech startup that gives business accounts and debit cards to small businesses, for an undisclosed amount.
Latest Update
In June 2019, H&R Block announced that it signs into an agreement to acquire Wave for $405 million.