Within a few days of ending the first investment in India, Stripe made its second one by backing Clear, a SaaS fintech firm based in Bangalore.
Clear, previously known as ClearTax, has been in the market for 10 years and is said to have raised about $75 million in the Series C funding round, led by Kora Capital. Other participants were Think Investments, Stripe, and Alua Capital, along with many other investors. This funding helped the startup to enlarge its all-time raise upto $140 million. The round made the valuation of this Indian company over $700 million.
They had Sequoia Capital India, Elevation Capital, Y Combinator and Founders Fund as their initial investors. Clear helps companies and individuals to file the returns of their taxes, provides them with wealth management ideas, as well as advises businesses with credit and e-invoicing.
According to the company, their platform is used by over 30,000 enterprises, 6 million individual clients and 1 million businesses, small and medium-sized. The founder and chief executive of Clear, Archit Gupta, mentioned how the SaaS platform of their company has multiplied five times in 18 months. The company is said to handle over 10% of business invoices in India with a $400 billion GMV, according to the claims of some sources
In India, where the population is about 1.4 billion, only 60 million citizens pay taxes. Hence, Clear has expanded its profitability by increasing the offers made to businesses and extending its services in the fields of wealth and credit management.
According to Gupta, their startup shall use this new funding to increase their offers and expand their business abroad. They already have active business with Middle Eastern companies and want to expand it to Europe in a similar way.
The company welcomed Kora, Stripe, and other new investors, and wants to learn from them for better productivity, profits, and service. India is on its way to digitization in a huge form, and the company claims to be fortunate to be a part of this storm of GST, mobile internet, UPI, electronic invoicing, and other modes of adopting technology rapidly. Hence, the timing of the received funding seems to be perfect for the future growth of the company Clear, as well.
Stripe hasn’t yet entered the Southeast Asian and Indian markets vividly. This is the second Indian startup to get funding from them. As per sources, they have already made investments in one company prior to this funding for Clear. Soon, they might make their third investment in India, by funding a company called XFlow, which is building an infrastructure for cross-border payments. According to some sources, the funding amount might be around $6 million, and the investment is said to have happened several months ago. XFlow has been making its operations in stealth mode to date. This funding might accelerate their business profit and help them increase their business fields and marketplaces.
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