Vertex Acquires Tellutax

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Vertex, a provider of tax technology and services, has acquired Tellutax, a Portland, OR-based edge computing technology startup that designs technology utilizing a container architecture for business customers to deliver tax solutions.

Terms were not disclosed. This is Vertex’ first acquisition since going public in 2020 and will help it compete with Avalara, another provider of a tax technology platform and services. Avalara, which went public in 2018, has been on a buying spree, acquiring three companies since last fall.

“We believe Tellutax edge technology will extend our leadership in the enterprise market and accelerate our ecosystem expansion into next generation payment and IoT platforms,” said Vertex president and CEO David DeStefano in a release. “This acquisition furthers our technology roadmap and hybrid cloud strategy, enabling us to serve customers in an increasingly hyper-connected environment.”

Tellutax was founded in 2018 by CEO Eric Ruud, formerly a managing director at Thomson Reuters, and CTO Eric Christian, who co-founded Sabrix and led the design and development of its indirect tax software platform. Sabrix was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2009.

“Vertex is a global leader in indirect tax automation and has a proven track-record across multiple generations of technology,” Christian said. “We believe edge computing will be the next generation of technology in our industry and we are thrilled to help Vertex accelerate this transformation.”

“Both Ruud and Christian possess a deep knowledge of tax technology and a track record of innovation,” DeStefano said. “We are excited to add the functionality of edge computing technology that Tellutax developed specifically for tax into our portfolio of solutions.”

Tellutax edge technology allows large amounts of transaction data to be processed where it’s needed. The technology enables the optimization of tax content by limiting it to data needed for specific locations, accelerating tax determination and reducing the footprint of the edge service.