Yonda Tax’s first institutional funding round, led by Kennet Partners with NYO Capital and Portfolio Ventures, is a clear signal that automated cross‑border tax compliance has moved from nice‑to‑have to core infrastructure for scaling digital businesses.
The London-headquartered platform has raised USD 15m (around EUR 13.8m / GBP 11m) to accelerate its expansion, squarely in the mid‑market sweet spot for growth capital that turns fast product‑market fit into international scale.
Tax-tech as critical infrastructure, not back‑office tooling
The round validates a broader market shift: global indirect tax compliance is no longer a specialist back‑office problem. For eCommerce sellers on Shopify and high‑growth SaaS and AI companies, it directly determines where they can sell, how fast they can enter new markets, and how much working capital gets trapped in errors, penalties, or manual processes.
Yonda automates multi‑jurisdictional indirect tax compliance — VAT, GST and sales tax — at a time when regulatory complexity is rising across major markets. The platform is built for businesses selling across borders early in their lifecycle, rather than retro‑fitting enterprise ERP stacks once they are already global.
That positioning is resonating. Yonda has grown more than 100% year‑on‑year, with headcount more than doubling in the past 12 months. Around 60% of its customers are already in the US, with additional clients in the UK, Australia, Canada and Singapore, underlining how quickly cross‑border tax pain points emerge for digital-first firms.
A mid‑market bet on global sellers
For mid‑market companies — from Shopify-native brands to SaaS and AI platforms scaling internationally — the choice has often been binary: stitch together local advisers in each jurisdiction, or graduate early to heavyweight enterprise systems.
Yonda’s model targets the gap in between: a software-led, globally oriented tax engine that can be embedded as companies expand, without the cost and complexity of full ERP migrations. That makes the business a natural fit for mid‑market-focused investors like Kennet Partners, who specialise in scaling profitable, B2B software and tech‑enabled services.
The investor group is effectively betting that the next generation of cross‑border champions will be digital natives who need tax automation from day one, not as a late-stage clean-up.
Regulatory tailwinds and international proof points
Three structural drivers underpin this deal:
- Regulatory tightening – Governments are closing VAT and sales tax gaps, pushing real‑time reporting, marketplace liability rules and stricter thresholds. Compliance risk and complexity rise with every new market entered.
- Platform distribution – With Shopify and other commerce platforms lowering barriers to global selling, even small brands quickly become multi‑jurisdictional, often without in‑house tax expertise.
- Global SaaS and AI roll‑out – Software businesses now go global almost from launch. Their subscription footprints trigger indirect tax obligations in dozens of territories long before they build local finance teams.
Yonda’s existing footprint — majority US clients but with meaningful presence in the UK, Australia, Canada and Singapore — gives it a rare early proof of global scalability in a space often dominated by region‑specific or enterprise‑only solutions.
What this signals for the European mid‑market
For European mid‑market companies, the Yonda round sends three clear messages:
- Tax automation is moving earlier in the growth curve. This is no longer a late-stage clean‑up exercise before a sale or IPO; it is part of the scaling toolkit.
- Investors view tax-tech as a growth enabler, not just risk insurance. The thesis is about faster market entry and leaner finance teams as much as avoiding fines.
- Competition in cross‑border compliance will intensify. Mid‑market CFOs can expect more specialised platforms, tighter integrations with commerce and billing systems, and increasing pressure to retire manual, spreadsheet-heavy workflows.
With a triple‑digit growth rate, a globally diversified customer base, and fresh mid‑market capital behind it, Yonda Tax exemplifies where tax-tech is heading: embedded, automated and international by design. The funding round is less about another point solution and more about the emergence of tax infrastructure built for how digital businesses actually scale in 2025.