Stripe has made its second funding in India, simply days after disclosing the first. One of many world’s most respected startups has backed Bangalore-based SaaS fintech agency Clear, the 2 mentioned Sunday night.
The ten-year-old Indian startup, formerly known as ClearTax, mentioned it has raised $75 million in its Collection C funding. The spherical was led by Kora Capital. Stripe, in addition to Alua Capital, Assume Investments and a number of other different present buyers participated within the spherical, which brings the startup’s all-time increase to over $140 million. The brand new spherical values the Indian startup at over $700 million, based on an individual acquainted with the matter.
Clear — which counts Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital India, Founders Fund, and Elevation Capital amongst its earliest buyers — helps people and companies file their tax returns. It additionally gives wealth administration recommendation to people, and helps companies with e-invoicing and credit score.
The startup says over 6 million people, and greater than 1 million small and medium-sized companies and over 30,000 enterprises use its platform.
Previously 18 months, mentioned Archit Gupta, Clear founder and chief govt in an interview with TechCrunch, the startup’s SaaS platform has grown 5 occasions. Clear mentioned it processes over 10%, up from 3% in 2016, of India’s enterprise invoices with a GMV of $400 billion.
Clear’s marquee providing, ClearTax, began at a time when e-filing was not as fashionable in India. However the startup discovered itself in a great place because of authorities rules within the following years. (The federal government made e-filing necessary within the nation 5 years in the past, as an example.)
However the variety of folks in India, house to 1.4 billion folks, who pay taxes continues to be pretty low. (Solely about 60 million people pay taxes in India.) That has been one of many the reason why Clear has expanded its choices to serve companies and likewise broadened to companies similar to credit score and wealth administration.
“We’re excited to associate with Clear as they innovate at scale within the Indian SaaS ecosystem, enabling enterprises and SMEs to automate their workflows round taxation, invoicing and a number of other different adjacencies,” mentioned Nitin Saigal, Kora’s founder and CIO, in an announcement.
Gupta mentioned the startup will deploy the recent funds to broaden its choices and can be starting to develop abroad. Clear, which is already serving companies within the Center East, plans to develop to cater to related companies in Europe quickly, he mentioned.
“We welcome Kora, Stripe and our different incoming buyers. Kora has sturdy expertise in know-how gamers in rising markets and Stripe is a worldwide know-how firm that builds financial infrastructure for the web – we’re excited to be taught from each of them,” he mentioned.
“India is on an enormous digitisation journey and we’re lucky to be within the excellent storm of digital invoicing, GST, UPI, low-cost cellular web and speedy adoption of know-how as a result of Covid-19. We’re doubling down on our SaaS platform to assist companies with collateral free debt and funds. This funding additionally provides us gasoline for our worldwide enlargement.”
Stripe has but to enter the Southeast Asia and India markets in a significant approach. The agency has groups at each the areas, however has but to make inroads in both. If it selected to develop to the world’s second largest web market, it will compete with YC and Sequoia Capital India-backed Razorpay, which not too long ago received funds from Salesforce and was last valued at $3 billion. Like Clear and Razorpay, Stripe can be backed by Y Combinator.
Stripe has already backed a minimum of another Indian startup, based on sources.
