Thomson Reuters has acquired tax automation firm SafeSend in an all-cash transaction valued at $600 million.
Founded in 2008, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based SafeSend serves a cloud-based platform designed to streamline the processing and sharing of delicate monetary paperwork. This contains instruments for delivering tax returns, gathering e-signatures, amassing funds, automating workflows, assembly compliance obligations, and extra.
SafeSend, which has some 235 staff, beforehand raised an undisclosed determine from Lead Edge Capital, and says it’s utilized by 70% of the highest 100 accountancy corporations within the U.S.
While Thomson Reuters is thought for its information company, the Canadian firm additionally operates a spread of merchandise spanning the authorized, tax, and accounting spheres. In truth, SafeSend already gives native integrations with Thomson Reuters’ tax preparation software program, and by bringing the corporate beneath its direct stewardship, this may go a way towards serving to Thomson Reuters’ help the so-called “final mile” of the tax return course of.
“This acquisition underscores our dedication to addressing the evolving challenges confronted by tax professionals and taxpayers alike,” Elizabeth Beastrom, Thomson Reuters’ president of tax, audit, and accounting professionals, stated in a press launch asserting the acquisition. “By integrating SafeSend’s revolutionary expertise with our present options, we’re simplifying tax preparation workflows, and assembly the dynamic calls for of companies we serve to assist them thrive in an more and more complicated tax panorama.”
SafeSend isn’t the primary such tax automation firm that Thomson Reuters’ has acquired — it snapped up SurePrep in a $500 million transaction in 2022. Indeed, there are clear parallels between SafeSend and SurePrep each when it comes to their product lineup and the way that they had began to embrace AI and automation. In early November, SafeSend launched a brand new AI product dubbed SafeSend One, which automates your entire tax course of, from doc gathering by tax return supply.
Thomson Reuters says it plans to proceed providing SafeSend as a standalone product, and can proceed to help a number of distributors throughout the tax software program sphere.
