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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tax prep software startup Copanion nets $10.2M, replaces CEO, CTO
By Galen Moore
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Tax preparation software maker Copanion Inc. has closed $10.2 million in new venture capital funding, the company announced today. Copanion has also replaced two of its co-founders, CEO Steven Ladd and CTO Depankar Neogi, and plans to expand into new markets, executives said.
Ladd’s departure was announced in a press release issued today by the company. He will be replaced by Edward Jennings, the company’s former senior vice president of marketing and sales. Ladd will continue in an advisory role, the company said.
Neogi has also left Copanion, a spokeswoman confirmed. According to the company’s website, Copanion’s technical strategy is now being led by Girish Welling. Dr. Venu Govindaraju, who has the title chief technical advisor, is an outside advisor.
Andover-based Copanion’s core product, GruntWorx, is a software application that automates tax form data entry for tax professionals. The company’s new venture financing comes from return investors Commonwealth Capital Ventures and Pilot House Ventures Group. The funding brings the company’s total financing to at least $16.2 million. Its Series A round, worth $6 million, closed in 2006.
Jennings said the company plans to use its new funds to expand beyond tax preparation into sectors like health care, insurance and financial services — “anything that is both regulated and paper-centric,” he said.
To that end, the company will likely hire business development executives with domain expertise in those areas, as channel sales will continue to be a focal point of its growth strategy, Jennings said. The company currently has sales partnerships with Intuit and Thomson-Reuters.
A portion of the funds will also go to expand marketing efforts in its current segment, which to date have mostly focused on call-center sales and search engine marketing, Jennings said.
Ladd, formerly chairman of Plaistow, N.H.’s Systematic Accounting Inc., and Neogi, a former technology executive at Tewksbury’s Winphoria Networks Inc., founded Copanion together with former vice president of business development Mark Robinson in 2006.
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