CaseWare has received an investment from Hg that will give the technology-focused private equity company a “significant stake” in the audit software maker.
The cost of the stake, which is CaseWare’s first institutional investment, was undisclosed. The money is earmarked for accelerating the growth of CaseWare Cloud, an end-to-end audit platform that includes engagement management, time and billing, file management, and a client portal, as well as continued investment in emerging tech.
“We partnered with Hg because they share our vision for the direction CaseWare is already moving, and they have a track record of success in the accounting and financial markets” said Matt Dodds, who was recently named CEO of CaseWare after serving as general manager of its flagship CaseWare IDEA. “We will continue to invest in the cloud. In general, we see this as a way to accelerate our organic product growth, which means investing in new technologies in cloud. We already have a number of artificial intelligence components, and we also will invest in automation. We especially want to invest more in integrating analytics and AI, as we believe that’s an area of great importance in audit."
Dwight Wainman and Maureen Naughton, co-founders and previously CEO and chief operating officers, respectively, of CaseWare, have moved to become board members and remain significant shareholders in the business.
Audit was in the spotlight before the COVID-19 pandemic, as rapidly developing technology — particularly artificial intelligence-enabled automation — was opening new doors for the process. CaseWare has also been working with the American Institute of CPAs to create the new Dynamic Audit Solution, a platform envisioned to harness AI capabilities to transform audit methodology as well as delivery. Upon the onset of the pandemic, firms were forced to go remote fast, which has once again put audit in the spotlight as a service area ripe for overhaul.
Dodds said the Dynamic Audit Solution is on track for a beta release in 2021.
“The solution is driven by data analytics and AI,” Dodds said. “It will have this technology embedded, but we’ve realized that AI can be a black box, and therefore it’s important we use it in a way that’s transparent to the auditor. So we’re going to roll it out carefully so they can get a toe in the water, and understand the skill sets needed to use it."
