Boast, the Vancouver-founded fintech company that helps companies automate the process of securing R&D tax credits, has a new leader. The firm announced that Alok Tyagi started the job on Monday, May 2.

Dallas-based Tyagi most recently held leadership positions at several prominent enterprise SaaS companies, including DealerSocket, RealPage, CA Technologies, and Sage. At Boast, he is responsible for scaling the company and product leadership.

This hire comes a year after Boast announced a series of new executives, including a new chief technology officer, chief marketing officer, and chief financial officer. Local tech stalwart and former Galvanize CEO Laurie Schultz also joined the organization last year as a board member.

Co-founder and former CEO Alex Popa and co-founder Lloyed Lobo started the business in 2011 to transform the traditional model of securing R&D tax credits by using technology to accelerate and automate the process. The company bootstrapped its growth until December 2020 when it raised USD $23 million. In February 2021, Boast secured a $100 million credit facility from Brevet Capital, an alternative credit investment and specialty finance firm.

Over the past 24 months, the company claims it’s experienced 4x revenue growth. “We believe that we have hit a moment in time where Boast will significantly benefit by us making room for a CEO with experience in scaling a business on the formula of a strong people and product agenda,” said Popa and Lobo, in a statement.

The pair say they will remain close to the business as board members and will continue to run their non-profit Traction, a community of 100,000 entrepreneurs that engage in events and activities.

New Boast CEO Tyagi said helping companies to develop deep R&D intelligence and innovation in order to grow more quickly is a passion of his, and also added that “Boast has built a vibrant business that is highly successful.”

Boast has been named among the top 25 machine learning startups to watch by Forbes.