Morgan Stanley Investment Management has announced a significant financial commitment to FreshBooks, a leader in cloud-based accounting software for small businesses. The company has provided $125 million in senior debt financing through funds managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and Morgan Stanley Private Credit. This investment is intended to refinance existing debt and support the company's ongoing growth.
FreshBooks, based in Toronto, specializes in SaaS software tailored for service-based small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with a primary focus on the U.S. and Canadian markets. The platform serves as an operational hub for its clients, offering services such as invoicing, payment processing, time tracking, and payroll management.
Pete Chung of Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and Ashwin Krishnan of Morgan Stanley Private Credit expressed their enthusiasm about the partnership: “We are pleased to be FreshBooks’ financing partner. We believe FreshBooks’ SaaS accounting software benefits from strong secular tailwinds, including increasing digital transformation and a shift to global e-invoicing and payments digitization. We believe FreshBooks has a tremendous market opportunity ahead of it and are confident that our growth credit and capital solutions teams are uniquely positioned to support FreshBooks in this important stage of its growth.”
Shaheen Javadizadeh, CEO at FreshBooks, also commented on the collaboration: “We’re thrilled to partner with Morgan Stanley’s Expansion Capital and Private Credit groups, who support our vision of empowering small business owners through technology. FreshBooks looks forward to leveraging their expertise in this next chapter of growth.”
The deal was spearheaded by Nick Nocito, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital focuses on late-stage growth equity and credit investments across various high-growth sectors including consumer technology and healthcare. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley Private Credit targets direct lending opportunities within North America and Western Europe.
Morgan Stanley Investment Management boasts over 1,400 investment professionals globally managing $1.7 trillion in assets as of December 31, 2024. The firm aims to deliver excellent long-term investment performance across a broad range of services worldwide.
Morgan Stanley operates as a leading global financial services firm with offices in 42 countries providing diverse financial services including investment banking and wealth management.