Online tax return-filing and investment platform ClearTax has raised funds amounting to $50 million in a fresh financing round. The round was led by Composite Capital which is based in Hong Kong.
This deal has come at a time when the financial tech sector, commonly referred to as fintech, has clocked rapid growth and managed to attract aggressive funding. The investor basically invests in early- to mid-stage companies across consumer goods, retail, transportation and technology in Asia. It was founded by a former partner at one of the leading Chinese investment firms called Hillhouse Capital.
Talking about the total funding of ClearTax, the company has raised $65 million since inception. It counts popular Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel, whose Founders Fund and Max Levchin, in his personal capacity, are its investors. It also has SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital, AngelList’s Naval Ravikant, among others as its backers.
“We have also added other new offerings like ClearTax EWayBill to facilitate eway bill compliance for businesses and incorporation and compliance services for those who are starting up their new ventures,” Archit Gupta, founder, ClearTax said.
He claims that the company has a base of as many as 1 lakh businesses on its platform availing its tax filing solutions and GST software. Also, he stated that they had successfully completed 2.5 million tax returns and were aiming to strike 4 million by financial year 2019.
ClearTax recently launched a mutual funds product known as ClearTax Invest and is now looking to improve its technology and deepen its reach with the help of the new capital. The company is expecting to capture a wider consumer market, selling mutual funds to its existing clientele made sense.
“Wealth creation is among the most opaque things consumers deal with after income tax filing. So it became the logical next step for us to take despite multiple players already present in the segment. For now we will focus only on this instead of widening the bouquet too much, too soon,” he said.