Accela Named Top-Tier Software Vendor by APPS RUN THE WORLD in the APPS and CLOUD TOP 500 Market Report

Accela Strengths, Domain Expertise, and Key Differentiators

Accela provides a platform of SaaS solutions that empower state and local governments to build thriving communities, attract and grow businesses, and protect citizens. More than 300 million citizens globally benefit from Accela’s solutions, powered by Microsoft Azure, for permitting, licensing, code enforcement, and service request management. Accela’s fast-to-implement Civic Applications, built on its robust and extensible Civic Platform, help agencies address specific needs today while ensuring they are prepared for any emerging or complex challenges in the future.

Powered by Microsoft Azure, Accela's open and flexible technology helps agencies address specific needs today while ensuring they are prepared for any emerging or complicated challenges in the future.

Accela Recent Developments

In October 2023, Accela, the provider of cloud solutions central to government operations, unveiled its Fall 2023 Release, featuring a spectrum of enhancements. These included system administration upgrades, updates to Software as a Service (SaaS) functionalities, and the integration of a novel solution aimed at streamlining community disaster preparedness and recovery efforts. The release encompassed improvements across various platforms, including the Accela Civic Platform, Accela Citizen Access, Accela Mobile, and Civic Applications, all designed to enhance user experience. These updates were developed based on feedback from users, demonstrating Accela's commitment to continuously improving the government experience for agency staff and residents alike.

In January 2021, Accela launched a new Civic Application for Occupational Licensing. The cloud-based, user-friendly solution makes licensing review and approval for licensed occupations simpler and more transparent to foster economic growth, increase government responsiveness, and help professionals focus on maintaining community public health and safety.

In 2020, Accela launched Civic Application for Fire Prevention. The solution helps fire departments increase their capacity and effectiveness and ensure they are equipped in the case of emergencies, especially amid an evolving environmental and public safety landscape.

The Fire Prevention application comes after the release of Civic Application for Environmental Health. The solution streamlines public health protection by combining all program data into one system and automating the application submission, plan review, inspection, and permitting process to reduce reliance on internal IT departments.

In January 2020, sold Springbrook Software to Accel-KKR. Springbrook is a provider of cloud-based finance, utility billing, and payroll software solutions for small and medium-sized municipalities and utility districts. The sale of Springbrook Software enables Accela to focus on its core solutions and customers, as it increases investment in its permitting, licensing, code enforcement, and service request solutions for modern government.

In January 2019, Accela launched the Civic Application for Environmental Health. It is a software solution that enables health departments to modernize how they deliver services by automating critical activities such as granting permits, managing inspections, and resolving complaints, to significantly enhance their ability to protect public health. The Environmental Health Civic Application is part of Accela's Civic Applications suite.

Accela Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Activities

In 2017, Berkshire Partners completed the acquisition of Accela. Before the acquisition, Accela had successfully raised $235.6 million from investors such as ABRY Partners, Karlani Capital, Landmark Growth Capital Partners, among others. The most recent investment in Accela came from Francisco Partners in 2023.

Accela Customers in ARTW Customer Database

Leveraging a rigorous data-centric research methodology, APPS RUN THE WORLD asks the simple question: Who’s buying Accela applications and why? And we provide the answers – supported by decades of research – to our clients around the world. Our Customer database has over 100 data fields that detail company usage of Accela and other enterprise apps by function, customer size, industry, location, implementation status, partner involvement, Line of Business Key Stakeholders and IT decision makers contact details. List of Verified Accela Civic Platform customers.

Accela Key Enterprise and Cloud Applications

Accela Civic Platform

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Accela Direct vs Indirect sales

Accela Customers - Breakdown by Geo, Size, Vertical and Product

List of Verified Accela Customers

No. of Accela Customers: 2200

No. of Accela Enterprise Applications Customers: 2200

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Accela's clientele comprises over 2,200 government agencies, highlighting its extensive usage across the public sector. Among its customers are Clark County, NV; Fairfax County, VA; City of Moreno Valley, CA; San Luis Obispo, CA; Palo Alto, CA; City of Rochester, MN; Pinellas County, FL; City of Mesa, AZ; Pima County, AZ, and many more.

Accela Market Opportunities, M&A and Geo Expansions

In September 2023, Accela, the provider of cloud solutions for government entities, received a strategic growth investment from Francisco Partners, a global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology businesses. Berkshire Partners remained a significant investor with an equal equity holding in Accela. This investment underscores the confidence placed by investors in Accela's innovative solutions and its potential for further growth and development in the government technology sector.

In November 2021, Accela unveiled the general availability of expanded SaaS offerings, including its Accela Civic Platform, in Australia and New Zealand. In addition to unveiling these expanded offerings, Accela also completed its first cloud migration in the region with a local government agency in New Zealand. Australia and New Zealand’s governments both have directed government departments to adopt a cloud-first approach to tech solutions. With the COVID-19 pandemic prompting several quarantines in the region, departments are accelerating efforts to modernize processes and preserve essential services, making cloud-based solutions more important than ever.

As a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Accela launched Response Solutions designed to help government agencies address rising challenges and navigate new modes of business operation during “shelter-in-place” and “social distancing” mandates.. The Response Solutions are designed to match the pressures of the pandemic and can be deployed within approximately 1-14 days, depending on the solution implemented.

A growing number of cities and counties were leveraging Accela's highly configurable SaaS solutions to rapidly adapt to the evolving needs of the global novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Baltimore County, Maryland; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Rochester, Minnesota are among the jurisdictions leveraging Accela’s flexible platform to keep critical government services running remotely, both for citizens and employees, safely allow nonessential businesses to resume operations, and protect their communities during the next phase of the pandemic response.

Accela Risks and Challenges

Accela's near-term agenda is to articulate a coherent product strategy following a series of acquisitions that have tripled its installed base. Another challenge is to migrate its existing on-premise customers to the Cloud in order to prevent any revenue leakage.

Competitors are expected to drive a wedge between these on-premise customers and Accela by pitching them affordable and perhaps more flexible Cloud alternatives. Accela will need to start emphasizing more of its key differentiators in land management, licensing, case management, not to mention the stability and scalability of Accela Automation.

Accela Ecosystem, Partners, Resellers and SI

In September 2021, Accela unveiled a new reseller partnership, building on their foundations of expertise in digitally transforming business processes for state and local government. Together through this partnership, Avolve and Accela can provide an unparalleled experience for applicants and plan reviewers at building agencies. With Avolve and Accela, agencies can achieve improved collaboration, transparency, and process insight, resulting in lower costs, faster review cycles, and a streamlined experience for both residents and agency staff.

Furthermore, in 2021, Accela and Symbium, the Complaw company, partnered to streamline building and planning compliance reviews. This partnership introduces pioneering zoning code compliance tools that align with Accela solutions to help reduce permit processing delays and accelerate local governments’ digital transformations in response to the pandemic as they address their recovery and whatever challenges may come next.

In August 2021, Coweta County partnered with Accela to provide online community development services. This includes the building, business licenses, code enforcement, development, planning, and zoning divisions.

In March 2020, Accela partnered with DWS Group (DWS), to expand operations and further enhance customer support in Australia and New Zealand.

It also has strategic partnerships with Adobe, EMC, Apple, Esri, Microsoft, Motion Computing, Oracle, Panasonic, and Selectron Technologies. Among its implementation partners are 21 Tech, GCOM, GovMethods, IK Consulting, Kings Canyon Technology, Natoma Technologies, OA Solutions, Peak Technology Solutions, Razavi Application Developers, RedMark Technologies, TechGlobal, TP Systems, TruePoint Solutions, and Woolpert.

Accela Cloud Infrastructure Insights

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Research Methodology

Data used in research reports are derived from publicly available documents, continuous surveys of applications vendors, customers, resellers, Independent Software Vendors, systems integrators and other verifiable sources.

Vendor shares and market forecast results are based on a combination of existing databases as well as demand side and supply side research conducted throughout the year with validation from vendors, customers, channel partners and documentations such as earnings releases and 10Q and 10K filings, vertical industry studies, regional and country-level statistics from public and private institutions(i.e. colleges, universities, government agencies and trade associations).

For additional information on our methodologies, here's the link: