26th March 2021 – Sage, the market leader for cloud businesses management solutions, today announced that it has acquired Task Sheriff, an AI-based SaaS technology start-up based in Tel Aviv, Israel. The acquisition will further strengthen Sage’s customer experience as emerging and advanced technologies continue to drive real business benefits.
Task Sheriff automates the accounting process for small business and bookkeepers by using AI and machine learning to accurately capture and integrate key data from financial documents. The acquisition will further strengthen Sage’s AI-enabled technology with the Task Sheriff founders joining Sage AI Labs (SAIL), a global team of AI engineers, product managers and data scientists based in San Francisco, Melbourne, Barcelona, and Tel Aviv.
This acquisition follows two other recent investments into high growth, cloud-based software applications which support and further accelerate Sage’s purpose to transform the way businesses think and work so their customers can thrive. Since December, Sage has invested over £20 million into start-ups aiming to help small and medium sized businesses simplify and digitise back-office operations.
Earlier this month, Sage confirmed its investment in Countingup, a London-based fintech offering entrepreneurs a business current account with built-in accounting software. Sage participated in the company’s £9.1 million Series A funding round, led by Framework Venture Partners.
In December 2020, Sage announced a £17 million minority investment in Brightpearl, a market-leading digital operations platform targeting digital retailers across the globe. Headquartered in Bristol, UK and Austin, Texas, Brightpearl helps retail customers to streamline and automate their operations across order management, CRM, fulfilment, retail accounting inventory, and warehouse management as they scale and grow.
Derk Bleeker, Chief Corporate Development Officer, Sage, said: “Our goal at Sage is to empower small and medium businesses to benefit from the rapid innovation in AI and other automation technologies to ensure they stay competitive in this fast-moving macro-economic climate. Task Sheriff, Countingup, Brightpearl, and our earlier acquisition of AutoEntry all focus on removing the headaches and friction that our customers face every day so we can help them to grow and thrive.”
“We’re tremendously excited to be working with some of the most innovative B2B fintech firms in the world, taking a flexible approach between partnering, investing and acquiring to build our eco-system and bring the benefits of our joint innovation to our customers. We offer these innovators a compelling path to acceleration by leveraging our deep domain and operational expertise, customer base and, where appropriate, capital. We look forward to building on this track record as we continue to increase the pace of innovation for our customers.”
Aaron Harris, Chief Technology Officer, Sage, said: “As businesses increasingly look to automation and digitalisation, investing in the right technology and talent is core to supporting the success of our customers. We’re looking forward to welcoming the Task Sheriff team and bringing the benefits of all our recent investments to our customers as we further extend the capabilities of Sage Business Cloud.”
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