Avalara Acquires Artificial Intelligence Technology and Expertise from Indix toAggregate, Structure, and Deliver Global Product and Tax Information

SEATTLE, WA — February 6, 2019 — Avalara, Inc. (NYSE:AVLR), a leading provider of tax compliance automation software for businesses of all sizes, today announced it has acquired Indix’s AI technology and expertise, with comprehensive product descriptions for more than 1 billion products sold and shipped worldwide. Avalara believes it will offer the industry’s most accurate, up-to-date, and comprehensive source of global tax and product content when it combines the Indix AI expertise, technology, and content with Avalara’s tax expertise and compliance content.

“Global taxing authorities govern compliance through ever-changing rules and requirements, and the task of gathering and maintaining this data is core to the value Avalara provides,” said Scott McFarlane, co-founder and CEO of Avalara. “We believe the combination of deep product knowledge, broad product content, and artificial intelligence technology will allow us to provide our customers the information they want and need to factor compliance into their business decision-making, and for Avalara to address more compliance requirements to support their growth.”

“Avalara and Indix share a similar global vision,” said Sanjay Parthasarathy, CEO of Indix. “From day one, we built Indix to collect, organize, and structure the world’s product information using artificial intelligence. With the addition of the Indix expertise, Avalara will be able to efficiently and rapidly refine its content to meet the expanding and evolving needs of its customers.”

Avalara intends to use the Indix AI to maintain and expand its already massive tax content database, which includes international product codes and classifications; taxability rules; exemption conditions; tax holidays; jurisdictions; boundaries; tax rates; thresholds and registration, compliance, and return preparation and filing requirements. Maintaining tax content and global product information is difficult and resource-intensive, requiring specialized technology, expertise, and human resources. Today, collecting new content and tracking changes can be a highly manual process. By applying Indix’s AI to this problem, Avalara believes it will be able to automate the aggregation and accurate maintenance of its tax content. 

Avalara will also apply the technology’s capabilities to further expand its database through global product mapping and classification, and automated content sourcing as it addresses new industries, geographies, and product offerings. Avalara believes its ability to collect, organize, and structure this content is accelerated with the acquisition of the Indix IP.

“Avalara’s mission is to help customers get tax compliance right, wherever their business takes them,” said McFarlane. “With the acquisition of this technology and the addition of the incredibly talented individuals that created it to our team, Avalara can more efficiently pursue that vision.”

Applying new, disruptive technology to the world of business compliance is Avalara’s heritage since its founding in 2004, when it pioneered the first cloud-based tax automation solution. With this acquisition, Avalara’s pioneering vision continues.