FreeAgent Central has secured its first round of funding, positioning the company for rapid expansion as it embarks on an aggressive growth strategy.

The independent software company, pioneering online accounting specifically for small businesses and freelancers, has received an undisclosed amount of investment from private and angel investors including serial entrepreneur Christoph Janz, founder of Pageflakes and an early investor in Zendesk, another highly successful SaaS player.

This comes after a hugely competitive start to the year with a sustained 40% increase in users every month during the first quarter.

Built for freelancers, by freelancers, FreeAgent has engaged with its users since its launch to ensure its software is simple in design, highly intuitive and usable. Most recently the company completed a wholesale redesign of the site’s interface and implemented a number of improvements, many of which were suggested by its users.

“Anyone who’s founded a startup will recognise the problem: it can be hard to get to grips with the accounting side of things,” said Christoph Janz, who joins the board of directors at FreeAgent Central. “The team have created an easy-to-use solution to that problem which I believe will have a big impact on the success of its small business customers.”

This funding and future investment will all aid the development of new features including exciting developments in multi-currency accounting, internationalisation and predictive cashflow.

The company has also successfully forged partnerships with some of the UK’s largest accounting practices. A leading provider of accountancy services to professional contractors and freelancers, London-based Blevins Franks will now be providing all its clients with a subscription to the FreeAgent service as part of its offering.

Providing FreeAgent software to practices means accountants spend less time number crunching, more time offering accounting advice and giving businesses a lot more transparency in their figures.

Phil Richards from Blevins Franks commented, “After 16 years helping Freelancers and Contractors run their Limited Companies FreeAgent have come up with something really special that enables a contractor to run their own company simply and easily. The last 12 months that we have worked with FreeAgent have been very exciting for us and we look forward to adapting our services as FreeAgent service itself develops more”.

Ed Molyneux, CEO of FreeAgent Central comments: “During an economic crisis it is vital small businesses and freelancers have a clear picture of their finances and the ability to control their cashflow.

“With this investment we can continue to improve our service for those in need of easy-to-use financial management tools, and expand quickly to reach even more of those small businesses and freelancers that make up the engine room of the British economy. We’re delighted to be welcome Christoph to the team and he’s already been able to provide invaluable help.”

Unlike accounting packages like Sage and Quickbooks, FreeAgent is web-based, requires no downloads or installation and is accessible from any computer with internet access. Uniquely, it is also able to provide a ‘Tax Timeline’ – a real-time forecast of tax liabilities and deadlines which help the business owner to avoid tax bill surprises and missed deadlines.

www.freeagentcentral.com

This news has also been covered by Mike Butcher over at TechCrunch UK. Read all about it here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/03/23/freeagent-central-secures-angel-round-for-growth/

A big pat on the back to Hot Tin Roof’s Emma McD for successfully completing the No Fuss Wee Triathlon in Lochaber yesterday – snow blizzards an all!

The event involved a 400m swim, 10mile cycle around Glen Nevis and 3.5mile cross country run that she managed to complete in 1.53.44.

Despite a few cuts and bruises, Emma made it into work today feeling quite chuffed with herself and wondering what event she will do next….

Hot tin Roof is launching Hot Tin Wire, a spin off internet division, creating and delivering online PR strategies primarily for the SME sector.

The agency has spent the last 12 months developing the infrastructure and perfecting the skills that will allow it to offer one of the hardest hitting online PR services in Scotland today.

Online consumer and corporate campaigns have already been delivered by the agency for all of its clients including Ryvita Limbos, Spencerfield Spirit and User Vision.

The unprecedented growth of social media over the last two years has changed the media landscape forever. It’s no longer a question of should a company develop an online PR strategy, but how quickly it can start and how it maintains visibility.

Hot Tin Roof has worked in digital marketing since launch, having delivered Ambergreen’s campaign for seven years, positioning the company as one of the UK’s leading digital marketing agencies, pioneering search marketing in Europe.

Sarah Lee, Hot Tin Roof MD explains: “Online PR is fresh, new and exciting. It has matured over the past five years and today UK business is ready for the concept and eager to engage.”

Many companies are now looking to online PR as a more accessible and affordable entry point to public relations. Traditional offline PR that builds reputation and positions a brand has to be sustained over the long term. Online PR can be instant, rapidly raise awareness and deliver results immediately.

There are plenty of stories of bad online PR like the forum discussions that destroyed the Kryptonite bike lock reputation because its brand managers did not monitor what was being said about the brand online.

Lee continues: “And thank you Ryanair for such a monumentally bad response to a blogger last week. Communication like this shows that we all need to become PRs now. Good communication is absolutely essential to the success of businesses online and to the security of brand reputation.”

The key to Hot Tin Wire’s success is taking the traditional PR skills and using them online. Knowing how to communicate a message and what makes a good story is combined with a broad and deep knowledge of the internet.

Hot Tin Wire offers a full online PR service including media monitoring, market research, key message creation, copy writing and online press release distribution. It designs, writes and publishes websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter profiles, newsletters and podcasts.