St. John’s-based ClearRisk, which provides risk-management software, is hoping to accelerate its recent 30 percent annual growth rate on the back of a $2.5 million round of growth capital and a few landmark sales.

The company said Monday its bank account recently swelled by $3.3 million due to the fundraising exercise and three large sales that add up to $800,000.

The growth capital is mainly a $1.65 million loan from the Business Development Bank of Canada. The remainder is $300,000 in equity investment from existing shareholders, a grant from the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, and a loan from the Royal Bank of Canada.

“We’re currently in a rapid scale-up phase,” said Craig Rowe, ClearRisk Founder and CEO in an interview. “The growth has been in the double digits in percentage terms the past few years. Even during the pandemic, we were still growing at 30 percent last year. And the funding will allow us to accelerate on that.”

Founded by Rowe almost 15 years ago, ClearRisk has developed software that helps clients with risk management, business continuity planning and incident management. It has more than 150 customers in North America, mainly large organizations with a diversified pool of fixed assets and/or operations. Its two main markets are government agencies (mainly at the municipal level) or large real estate investment groups.

The three customers it added recently are Calgary-based real estate investment firm Avenue Living Asset Management and two large Canadian municipal insurance pools.

In the interview, Rowe said ClearRisk plans to accelerate its growth by building on its team of 30 people, mainly in the marketing department with the goal of increasing sales.

“We’re growing at a faster rate all the time, and we put a lot of effort into that,” said Rowe. “Since the pandemic began, we’ve completely rebuilt the product from the ground up  . . . so it can be more quickly deployed and we have a lot more functionality now.”

ClearRisk has also added new female executives. Women now make up 40 percent of the staff -- the industry average in IT companies is 22 percent. The new hires include: Francine Barbe, Director of Finance; Stephanie Collins, Director of Human Resources; and Elyse Summers, Customer Success Manager.

Rowe said the fundraising exercise was the first for ClearRisk in more than five years, and he thanked BDC and RBC for working with the company.

“We have been a long-time partner of ClearRisk and are very pleased to be able to continue to support the team as it executes on its exciting growth path,” said BDC Capital Director of Growth and Transition Capital Brian Whiteway in a statement. “Their impressive suite of solutions is very well adapted to the market, and we look forward to supporting the management team in driving the company forward to even greater success.”