A SOFTWARE engineering firm founded by a York developer almost ten years ago has been valued at $1 billion (US) after announcing the success of a $90 million funding round.

Anaplan, which provides businesses with a digital platform for financial planning, and has now raised $240 million since 2011, with the latest funding round described as a "pre IPO" exercise.

The business, now headquartered in San Francisco, has 75 staff in York at its product development division in Bonding Warehouse, which is the firm's global engineering office, alongside others in the US and Paris.

Michael Gould, who founded the business in 2006, and is now British chief technology officer, said: "The funding is driving three areas of expansion; the global sales operation, adding more infrastructure to support our cloud based services and investing in our data centres, and finally investing in our engineering teams.

"What it means for us is a commitment to the ongoing expansion of our team here in York as we look for more software developers and designers.

"This was a pre-IPO funding round. We are looking forward to doing an IPO as and when it is the right time.

"This round of funding was about bringing on board the type of investors that would invest during an IPO, and building a relationship with those.

"Many of our earlier investors also invested this time around as well."

Premji Invest led the investment, supported by Baillie Gifford, Founders Circle Capital, and Harmony Partners, as well as Anaplan’s current investors.

The company also announced the appointment of James Budge as its chief financial officer.

Anaplan was founded by Mr Gould who worked from home in Yearsley for four years before commercialising his invention in 2011.

In 2014 the business relocated from Hawk Business Park near Easingwold to the ground floor of Bonding Warehouse, where the building's flood defences protected all but a couple of inches during the recent flooding.

Since its incorporation Anaplan has more than 500 employees worldwide in 15 offices across 11 countries, all working to serve more than 400 customers across more than 20 countries.

In its six monthly financial results, ending January 2016, Anaplan has reported revenue growth of 134 per cent year-on-year, while increasing more user numbers to more than 160 per cent since last year, to more than 60,000.

Mr Gould said: "I obviously had high hopes when I started the business, but the way it has grown, especially over the last three to four years, has been fantastic.

"It was a long time to get a product ready for launch. We launched the system in 2010 and started selling in 2011, so it's really only the last three to years when it has reached this level. I'm absolutely thrilled with how it is going."

Sandesh Patnam, partner and lead U.S. investor, at Premji Invest, said: "We have seen a broad range of companies around the world transform their businesses with Anaplan’s agile planning and modeling platform.

"Anaplan is a game changer because it enables companies to not only make processes faster and easier, but also fundamentally change the way their people work and make decisions. "