ZenBusiness Lands $15 Million in Funding to Help Small Businesses Launch and Run Effectively

ZenBusiness, an online platform to help small businesses incorporate and stay compliant with regulators, announced Wednesday that it has raised $15 million in additional funding.

The Austin-based company, founded by Russ Buhrdorf, the former founding Chief Technology Officer for HomeAway, has previously raised $4.5 million in seed-stage funding last year.

ZenBusiness’ platform makes it easy and inexpensive for a company to file an LLC or Corporation with state and federal regulators. ZenBusiness also offers a wide array of business services including accounting, taxes, banking, lending and credit, website, domain, and email.

ZenBusiness, which launched in February of 2018, has since attracted thousands of small businesses to its platform. Its goal is to help launch 1 million new businesses by 2023.

“The expense, effort and knowledge required to start a business today is prohibitive, and entrepreneurs report feeling overwhelmed and isolated when it comes to making decisions about their business,” Buhrdorf, CEO of ZenBusiness, said in a news release. “ZenBusiness helps entrepreneurs realize their dreams by eliminating the many barriers associated with starting a company and running it day-to-day. We are the only online platform that leverages automation, Machine Learning and the collective power of a large community of like-minded business owners to offer unmatched business services. Together we are on a mission to revolutionize how small businesses are created and run.”

Greycroft led the Series with Lerer Hippeau, and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. New investors included Rosecliff Venture Partners, Interlock Partners, and Recruit Strategic Partners.

ZenBusiness plans to use the funds to build out its platform and features and to reach new customers.

“ZenBusiness is democratizing entrepreneurship by making it easy to start and run a small business,” Greycroft Partner and ZenBusiness board member Paul Bricault, said in a news release. “By combining a disruptive platform with a flat subscription-based pricing model, small businesses have unprecedented access to ongoing resources and essential legal protections. It’s no surprise that thousands of small business owners have signed on with ZenBusiness as a trusted partner.”

“As the ZenBusiness community of small business owners continues to grow, so does their collective power to cut costs and create efficiencies,” Eric Hippeau, Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau, said in a news release. “Between the company’s proven management team led by Ross, its clear product focus and mission to empower the small business landscape, we’re excited about all that’s to come.”

Among the features on its platform, ZenBusiness also offers a subscription-based pricing model to maintain corporate entities so that owners never need to worry about the status of their business. ZenBusiness will “make sure business owners stay in good standing with the Secretary of State, or it will pay to fix it.”