TORONTO — Blue J raises US$9M Series B funding to accelerate development and adoption of the company's flagship tax analysis platform, adds new executives to lead sales and marketing, and announces new tax diagramming solution.

Blue J, the leading provider of predictive analysis tools for tax positions, today announces that the company has raised US$9M in Series B financing led by Generation Ventures. The round includes participation from returning investors Relay Ventures, Mistral Venture Partners and LDV Partners. In conjunction with the financing, Geoff Beattie, Chairman of Generation Ventures, is joining Blue J's board of directors.

Since its inception in 2015, the team at Blue J has grown to more than 65 employees. New executives have joined Blue J to lead sales and marketing. Joshua Tanzola joins Blue J as VP, Global Sales. Tanzola brings years of experience from Clio, where he specialized in developing creative partnerships that contributed to Clio's record of strong growth. Peter van Hezewyk joins Blue J as VP Marketing. Van Hezewyk joins Blue J from Thomson Reuters, where he previously led the marketing strategy for global large law firms.

These new executives will build on Blue J's success in tapping into the need its customers have for timely and accurate analysis of the merits of tax and legal positions. Blue J has signed on more than 200 organizations as customers, including leading North American law firms, global accounting firms, and the Canadian federal government.

The funding will also contribute to the development of Blue J's new tax diagramming solution. Tax experts almost always begin with a picture of the entities and relationships that they are working with. Blue J's new tax diagramming solution streamlines documenting and analyzing the tax implications of the complex relationships among entities. Blue J's tax diagramming solution is purpose-built for tax practitioners and opens up new ways to leverage AI and machine-learning in analysis of the merits of tax positions.

"The 2020s will see incredible growth in machine-learning applications in law. There is a strong appetite in the North American market for innovative and user-friendly tools that facilitate the analysis of the merits of tax and legal positions. This is a big win for the clients of law and accounting firms who are actively encouraging their advisors to adopt technology to better meet their needs," says Benjamin Alarie, CEO of Blue J. "With the ongoing support and confidence of our investors, we at Blue J continue to serve our customers by expanding our ability to bring absolute clarity to the law, everywhere and on-demand."

"Blue J is creating the future of legal analysis" says Geoff Beattie, Chairman of Generation Ventures. "Professional advisors are accelerating their use of advanced technologies like Blue J to improve the speed and accuracy of their advice. This investment will allow Blue J to take its technology to the next level by scaling up its US product, technology and go-to-market operations."

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