A SIMPLE phone and tablet invoicing app is making a fortune for former Ebden resident Chris Strode by paying other people’s bills.
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The former Wodonga Catholic College student created Invoice2go in a bid to make invoicing easy for small businesses in Australia and, increasingly, around the world.
The company he founded is today valued at $100 million by Accel Partners and Ribbit Capital.
They yesterday said they would inject $35 million into the business, which has 15 employees.
“We see this as a new chapter in the journey and believe the company can grow 10 times its size,” Mr Strode said.
“Over the next 12 months, we want to double or triple our staff.
“Accel, which has invested in Dropbox, Spotify, Angry Birds and a whole host of other companies, typically likes to invest in companies where they see the potential of a billion-dollar valuation.”
Mr Strode, 40, grew up at the Boathaven Holiday Park, which his parents, Margaret and Tony, owned.
He studied at La Trobe University, Wodonga, before moving to Sydney.
He has lived on the NSW Central Coast much of the time he has been involved in Invoice2go.
“You don’t need to be in metropolitan Melbourne or Sydney (to create such a business),” he said.
“Even in places like Albury and Wodonga, in this day and age where everyone has access to broadband, there are these great opportunities to build businesses.”
The app works by allowing businesses to quickly create invoices for clients, which can be emailed as PDF files.
Mr Strode said 120,000 people used the app, but there were 100 million small businesses that could benefit from it.
The company has a presence in more than 50 countries, and Mr Strode wants to expand that.
“We’ll continue the global growth into other markets,” he said.
“I didn’t see us getting to this. I just see us taking it one day at a time.”