Avalara
👤 Scott McFarlane (+ Rory Rawlings, Jared Vogt) (Rawlings knew sales-tax software cold; McFarlane and Vogt were repeat SaaS founders who'd built and sold MetaInfo (1998).)🌐 siteLinkedIn
A boring, mandatory, forever-updating tax problem nobody wanted - until Wayfair made it every online seller's problem.
Will it work? · our read
Rode the ruling. The Wayfair windfall is spent. The core calc is commoditizing as Stripe Tax and modern rivals bundle it cheaper; the moat now is switching cost and content depth, not novelty.
01How the money moves
E-commerce seller connects AvaTax to its cart, billing or ERP
→
Each order pings Avalara for the exact rate across 13,000+ jurisdictions
→
Seller pays subscription + per-transaction fees - and Avalara files the returns
02The numbers
$699M
FY2021 revenue
SEC 10-K
$8.4B
Vista buyout, 2022
SEC 8-K
43,000+
customers (2023)
founder
Private since 2022; McFarlane says revenue topped $1B in 2023.
$1B+ revenue in 2023 (founder-stated); $699M filed in 2021, its last SEC-reported year before Vista took it private.
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(demo: preview the full teardown)Sourcesupdated · daily
SEC 8-K (Aug 2022) - Vista $8.4B take-private at $93.50/shareGeekWire (2018) - founding on Bainbridge Island, orange-shirt culture, IPO after 14 yearsSouth Dakota v. Wayfair - the June 21, 2018 ruling that legalized economic nexusForbes (2018) - Scott McFarlane, the three founders, MetaInfo backgroundCNBC (2025) - Avalara refiles to return to public markets
Headline $1B+ (2023) is founder-stated (Scott McFarlane, interviews) - Avalara has been private since Oct 2022 and no longer files, so it is not independently audited. The $699M (FY2021) revenue and $8.4B Vista buyout are FILED from Avalara's SEC filings while public (NYSE: AVLR, 2018-2022) and are first-party verified. The 'IPO days before Wayfair' timing and the content moat are documented facts; the commoditization/'dies' thesis is our read, not Avalara's. Jurisdiction (13,000+) and integration (1,400+) counts are Avalara's own figures. We never score you.