The Bengaluru-headquartered start-up with offices in Mumbai and Delhi will be opening two new offices while also doubling the existing employee base of 300 in the coming months
Tax e-filing and investment platform ClearTax, which has just raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Composite Capital, is building its presence in the country. The Bengaluru-headquartered start-up with offices in Mumbai and Delhi will be opening two new offices while also doubling the existing employee base of 300 in the coming months.
In an earlier interaction with DNA Money, Archit Gupta, founder and chief executive officer, ClearTax, said, "Our next focus will be on expanding to Hyderabad and Chennai. We see tax saving mutual funds as the big growth drivers, along with our goods and services tax (GST) matching service which will be launched soon.
"We are on an intensive hiring mode and looking to add more engineers and chartered accountants (CAs). We will be adding 300 people in the next four to five months so our team size will grow to 600," said Gupta, adding that the company is anticipating the number of CAs using their platform to double in the next six months.
Founded in 2011, ClearTax was first funded by US-based accelerator Y Combinator. It later raised a Series A from other global investment firms like SAIF Partners, Founder's Fund and Sequoia Capital, among others. Prior to the Series B investment, the company had raised $15 million and the promoters owned majority in the company.
While the company isn't profitable yet, the promoters have been investing ahead of the curve in areas like research and development (R&D), technology, sales and education. "We spend 45% of our revenues on R&D and technology. We are making money on every transaction but still, we are investing in sales, marketing, product and so on. Our GST and other business-to-business (b2b) solutions are expected to grow exponentially in the next 24 months," said Gupta.
On the technology front, ClearTax is making significant investments in data centres, in scaling operations for seasonal spikes such as month-end, quarter-end, and year-end periods. "In terms of technology, you need to scale up the servers seamlessly. For example, on the last (tax filing) days, 400 servers are running. Cloud servers work really well for us and we use AWS and a data centre in Mumbai," said Gupta.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "e-filing")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}