SAIF leads $12m round for India's ClearTax

ClearTax will use the capital to build and launch new products, as well as to grow its team substantially. The company plans to triple its employee base by the end of the year from its current level of 100; of particular focus is the engineering staff, which ClearTax plans to expand by more than 100. It will also make significant additions to its executive team.

The new investment comes less than a month after ClearTax's pre-Series A round in March, in which the company raised $2 million from Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund Angel. An angel round in April saw it raise $1.3 million.

Founded in 2011, ClearTax claims to be used by over one million Indian taxpayers to file their tax returns electronically, making it the largest such service provider in the country. The company sees potential for growth as Indian incomes rise, leading more people to file tax returns for the first time. In addition, it to add more businesses to its platform; currently several thousand enterprise customer use the service.

Though ClearTax has run a profit so far, it is seeking outside investment to pursue its expansion plans within India and globally. In 2014 the company gained the backing of Silicon Valley-based accelerator Y Combinator, which contributed funds and helped with introductions to investors who have gone on to back the company, including WhatsApp business head Neeraj Arora and AngelList founder Naval Ravikant.

"The ClearTax team has demonstrated distinctive growth over the last five years to build the largest tax filing platform in India," SAIF Managing Partner Ravi Adusumalli said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the Cleartax team in their journey to create a wide range of offerings for retail and SME customers."

SAIF is investing from its second India fund, which launched in 2014 and closed the following year at $350 million. The fund seeks early and growth stage investments in companies across a range of sectors, including fintech, manufacturing, media, medical and travel and hospitality.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Venture
• India
• SAIF Partners
• Sequoia Capital