Wave achieves growth milestones, unveils Machine Learning capabilities, and celebrates with a complete rebrand

TORONTO, Sept. 24, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today Wave (waveapps.com) announced its latest company milestones, including achieving more than 3.5 million registered business customers. Wave also unveiled a roster of new features for its suite of small business financial services and software, as well as a complete brand overhaul including a new logo.

Wave has become the leader in financial management specifically for entrepreneurs, freelancers and owners of small and micro business. Among Wave’s milestones:

• More than 3.5 million businesses registered with Wave
• Adding ~70,000 new small businesses per month
• More than $3 billion moved for small business customers via Wave’s payments and payroll services
• 185 employees and growing

Among Wave’s customers are entrepreneurs like Lisa Smith, a Las Vegas jazz singer and founder of Geek Girls in Vegas, a company that provides website and graphic design services to other Vegas entertainers. “I was creating invoices in word processing software. They were pretty, but I had no way of keeping track of them. And as I got more and more customers, it was impossible to know who had paid me and who hadn’t.”

Smith found Wave in 2016, and it became her support system. “Wave made a huge difference to my stress level, and saves me hours every week, between invoice reminders and bookkeeping. And my customers can pay me quickly by credit card, and everything is automatically tracked.”

“By focusing on small and micro businesses, rather than “small-and-medium” businesses, we’ve been able to attract a very specific yet massive and underserved audience,” says Kirk Simpson, CEO and co-founder of Wave. “We’ve also been able to develop a popular suite of tools made just for entrepreneurs, and with the foundation we’ve put in place over eight years, our pace of innovation and growth is accelerating.”

Among the key innovations announced today: machine learning embedded into Wave’s bookkeeping functionality. The smart technology learns from the individual Wave customer, as well as from nearly a billion transactions that Wave manages, to automatically categorize transactions in a customer’s bookkeeping records. “Next, we’re working on applying ML technology to provide deep business insights for our customers, and we’re exploring interesting applications in credit scoring and lending to fix cash flow challenges for entrepreneurs across North America,” says Simpson.

Other new features launched today:

• Wave+, a comprehensive bookkeeping service for Wave customers who need hands-on assistance with their financial management.
• Accelerated bank payment processing (payouts within two business days), with patent-pending technology
• A “Checkout” feature for easy e-commerce, fully integrated with accounting
• Machine learning algorithms that automatically categorize transactions
• Improved bookkeeping, with pages that load 2.5x faster, comparative reporting, easier reconciliation and more
• Enriched customer support options, including a robust community for entrepreneurs
• Payroll features for contractors, with automatic 1099 forms                

New logo and rebrand: “Up and to the right”

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/20bc0b27-0a12-4974-a1c0-275df010ffd0

“As a result of our growth, we’re also in the position to tell our story with a new brand identity,” says Simpson, who along with Wave’s Director of Marketing Creative Grace Marquez, unveiled a new logo, new brand positioning, and a completely redesigned visual identity for all Wave’s applications and services.

“Wave’s ecosystem of financial services and software has matured, outgrowing the logo that got us here. So we’re launching an all-new brand presence as we tackle a new set of audacious goals in how we provide financial services to entrepreneurs.”

About the new logo:

• The "surging wave" logo represents the bars of a financial chart, showing the classic "up and to the right" growth pattern of successful companies like those who use Wave.
• Each independent bar represents the independent entrepreneur, who stands alone but also is part of Wave’s global community of entrepreneurs.
• The logo mark evokes a wave on the sea that's building in strength and momentum — like the surging small and micro business segment which already accounts for 95% of businesses in North America and growing fast.
• And of course the logo is a stylized W for Wave.

About Wave
Wave has changed the way small business owners make money, move money and manage money. Launched in 2010, Wave provides financial services (payment processing, payroll) and free, award-winning software (invoicing, accounting, receipt scanning, personal finance) for entrepreneurs around the world.