Shooting star: with $225 million in backing from hotshot investors, Michael Praeger's AvidXchange aims to be the North Carolina tech community's next big score.

• Author: Mildenberg, David

Best known for its banks, airport and Super Bowl-quality football team, Charlotte has never been mistaken as a center for homegrown tech companies with market-moving potential. Doug Lebda's LendingTree, a pioneer in the online loan market, delivered a $44 million IPO in 2000, then almost collapsed in the 2007-09 recession before recovering. Ric Elias and Dan Eeldslein started Red Ventures in Charlotte, moved its headquarters to South Carolina, and the business is growing rapidly as internet marketing explodes. Dave Jones' Peak 10 grew into a data-center leader that employs about 200 people in Charlotte and is now owned by a San Francisco private-equity group. Now, the short list of tech successes is gaining an entrant poised to accelerate the city's reputation as a startup hotspot.

AvidXchange Inc.'s revenue is growing at an 80% clip this year, and the company now employs 800 people, compared with 75 in 2011 and 300 in January 2015. It raised $225 million last year from some of the most successful U.S. tech investors, pushing its valuation past $500 million. It was triple the venture-capital money raised from U.S. investors by any other North Carolina business since 2010, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Its board is now stocked with veteran executives who include a former Visa president, a co-founder of Capital One Financial and a venture capitalist who made hundreds of millions of dollars when FitBit went public.

Most companies grow fast initially, then plateau as the numbers get larger. The reverse has happened at the company co-founded in 2000 by Midwestern transplants Michael Praegerand David Miller. Started as the dotcom bubble burst, AvidXchange is no instant success. It grew modestly during its first decade or so and raised about $20 million in its first 14 years, with most of the investment coming from founders, private individuals and a now-defunct Charlotte venture-capital fund.

"Avid is a fascinating example of a large company, growing extremely quick, that is hidden in plain sight," venture-capital investor Brad Feld said after his Boulder, Colo.-based company. Foundry Croup, joined with Bain Capital Ventures and others in last year's financing. As one of the state's fastest-growing tech companies, "It's on track to be a very important payment intermediary in the overall financial infrastructure."

Translating that into English, AvidXchange shuffles money between businesses, befitting Charlotte's strong suit as a finance center. It automates accounts payable, speeding up a decades-old trend of squeezing paper checks out of society, replaced by a few keystrokes on computers, tablets or phones. Accounts payable may rank among the world's least sexy topics, but no one can doubt its ubiquity...