Charlotte-based AvidXchange acquires Texas software company

AvidXchange, a Charlotte-based software firm that automates bill payments and invoices for midsized companies, said on Tuesday it has acquired a Texas company – a move it says will strengthen its influence in the real estate sector and expand its workforce to more than 400 people.

Strongroom Solutions, based in Houston, provides accounts payable software for financial institutions and companies that manage invoices and payments for hundreds of homeowner associations nationwide. The company, founded in 2007, plans to move to AvidXchange’s AvidPay Payment Network, one of the company’s key products.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We made a name for ourselves by starting in the real estate space, so we were seeking a highly complementary acquisition target in that space,” said AvidXchange CEO and co-founder Michael Praeger.

No Strongroom employees will lose their jobs as a result of the deal, Praeger told the Observer. Instead, the CEO said he expects to add at least 10 jobs to Strongroom’s workforce within the next year.

The acquisition is the latest in a series of big moves for AvidXchange, a company that’s been called one of the fastest growing in the U.S.

Last November, the company acquired Piracle, a firm based in Salt Lake City that specializes in payment management tools. Going forward, Praeger said AvidXchange plans to buy one or two companies a year.

The company generated more than $50 million in revenue last year and expects to be a “$250 million revenue business” in the next two years, he said.

And Praeger said that rapid growth might position the firm he co-founded in 2000 to go public within the next two years although there are no immediate plans to file an initial public offering.

“We’ll figure out whether the market or anything else dictates whether we should be a public company or not,” he said.

The Charlotte City Council last year granted the firm a $1.1 million tax break when it announced plans to add 600 new jobs in Charlotte and build a new 116,000-square-foot office and parking deck near the NC Music Factory. In January, the company began moving workers into the former Silver Hammer building at the music factory, about 3 miles away from its current headquarters on Metropolitan Avenue.

The firm hired more than 200 employees last year and 80 so far this year. The Strongroom acquisition brings the company’s total workforce to more than 400 employees, Praeger said.

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Charlotte-based AvidXchange acquires Texas software company."