R&D Tax Automation Pioneer Boast.ai Expands Leadership Team with Industry Heavyweights

Experienced Executive Leadership Joins Boast.ai to Help Scale and Support the Company’s Technology and Growth.

Boast.ai, a FinTech platform that helps companies automate the cumbersome process of preparing and financing Research and Development (R&D) tax credit claims in the United States and Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credits in Canada, announced today the addition of a new board member and three new executives to its leadership team, including Chief Technology Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chief Financial Officer.

Laurie Schultz joins Boast.ai’s board of directors. She was most recently the CEO of Galvanize, a SaaS Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) software company that was acquired for $1 billion by Diligent Corporation. She led the transformation of their global business by mobilizing talent toward category disruption, successfully repositioning the company to one of Canada’s Top 100 and Best Managed employers. With over 30 years of experience, Schultz has also held leadership positions at several multi-billion dollar businesses including Sage and Intuit, where she doubled both revenues and profits.

“R&D is the engine of the modern economy, and innovative companies should be able to access the tax credits they’re entitled to without the red tape and delay,” said Schultz. “I love what the founders Alex Popa and Lloyed Lobo have done to streamline and productize the process, combined with a unique recurring business model, exceptional team and enviable culture all while keeping community give-back at the heart of the company. I’m thrilled to join their mission and help Boast.ai become a global leader in R&D tax credits.”

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As part of the company’s continued investment in product development, Boast.ai has named Tara Janke as Chief Technology Officer to lead all aspects of product development, technology, data, security, and user experience. Janke comes with more than 25 years of product management and engineering experience in leading high-performing teams and growing global software companies in multiple sectors, including seven years at sales tax software company Avalara where she incubated the EMEA engineering team, from seven to 100+ engineers, and from three to nine product lines, resulting in doubling revenues year over year.

“Alex and Lloyed have created an extraordinary opportunity to revolutionize an industry to become the defacto standard for tax credit submission,” said Janke. “Boast’s technology makes the process simple and efficient, allowing its customers to focus on supercharging their growth. I’m thrilled to help them take the existing technology further as well as build the next generation of Boast products.”

Chris Cottle joins as Chief Marketing Officer with more than 25 years experience in brand category design, digital marketing and brand acceleration for technology companies spanning both B2B and B2C sectors. His experience spans four acquisitions including Exabyte and MaritzCX, as well as playing a pivotal role leading marketing at Caldera through its successful IPO. Cottle was most recently EVP Marketing at SaaS experience improvement leader InMoment.

“CEOs care about products, customers, capital and growth,” said Cottle. “Boast impacts all of these key areas and is pioneering an exciting new category with a massive market opportunity–one that helps companies fuel their growth in a new way. R&D tax credits are a valuable form of capital to accelerate innovation, but most businesses either do not claim it or leave money on the table due to the associated red tape. Boast reclaims it quickly and easily for them, enabling CEOs to reinvest that capital to accelerate product innovation and growth.”

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Tim Fisher joins as Chief Financial Officer, having successfully grown and managed finance and analytics functions for multiple venture-backed startups. Fisher was most recently at Lumere, which was acquired by GHX in January 2020.

“As someone who’s managed R&D Tax Credit filings for several companies, I felt the customer pain point acutely,” said Fisher. “I knew that Boast.ai was ready for exponential growth and I couldn’t stay away.”

These new leadership hires come as Boast.ai continues to build out its team in order to scale to meet increased customer demand. Following its recent $23 million in Series A funding from Radian Capital, a growth-stage fund specializing in enterprise software, combined with a $100 million credit facility from Brevet Capital, a leading alternative credit investment and specialty finance firm, Boast.ai has expanded its team by fifty new people in the last four months with plans to continue aggressive growth before the end of the year.

“It gives me great pride and honor to welcome Laurie Schutlz, Tara Janke, Chris Cottle, and Tim Fisher to the Boast.ai family to help with our next chapter of growth,” said Popa, CEO and Co-founder, Boast.ai. “I’m excited to work with them as we execute on our mission to create a world where every innovator has access to the capital and resources they need to become successful.”

Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments combined, provide more than $20 billion in R&D credits to fund businesses. Boast.ai has helped more than 1,000 companies recover their R&D costs from the U.S. and Canadian governments, streamlining the process, reducing the risk of costly audits, and giving companies access to their future refunds as early as 16 months in advance. Boast.ai’s R&D tax credit software gathers data from a company’s existing technical and financial systems to identify, categorize, and time-track eligible projects, ensuring nothing is missed and all the supporting documentation is in place, leading to larger refunds with less investment of time and resources.

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