The story
CEO Kirk Simpson and CPO James Lochrie launched Wave Accounting Inc. in July 2009, Wave Accounting launched to the public on November 16, 2010. In June 2011, Series A funding led by OMERS Ventures was closed. In September 2011, FedDev Ontario invested one million dollars in funding. In October 2011, a $5-million investment led by U.S. venture capital firm Charles River Ventures was announced. In May 2012, Wave Accounting closed its series B financing round led by The Social+Capital Partnership, with follow-on participation from Charles River Ventures and OMERS Ventures.
Wave acquired a company called Small Payroll in November 2011, which was later launched as a payroll product called Wave Payroll. In February 2012, Wave officially launched Wave Payroll to the public in Canada, followed by the American release in November of the same year.
In August, 2012, the company announced the acquisition of Vuru.co, an online stock-tracking service. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In December 2012, the company rebranded itself as Wave to emphasize its broadened spectrum of services.
On March 14, 2019, the company acquired Every, a Toronto-based fintech company that provides business accounts and debit cards to small businesses.
On June 11, 2019, the company announced it was being acquired by tax preparation company, H&R Block, for $537 million.
On June 15, 2022, Wave announced that Kirk Simpson would be leaving and being replaced as CEO by Zahir Khoja.
In May 2025, US customers of Wave were transitioned to a new Payroll processing system supported by CheckHQ. The new integration improved support for US employers by handling employer tax withholding and payments in all 50 US States.
From Wikipedia’s article on Wave Financial, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7