ClearTax stretches into Middle East and raises $75 million

ClearTax stretched its entry into the Middle East market as part of a $75 million Series C investment round for international expansion. The fundraise, led by Kora Capital, will also be used to boost Clear’s diversification into other business lines such as B2B credit and payments, with contributions from global fintech Stripe, Alua Capital, Think Investments, and current investors.

Speaking on the development, Archit Gupta, Founder, and CEO – ClearTax, said, “Government authorities across the Middle East are undertaking massive digital reforms to transform the economy in the next decade. This wave of digitization is resulting in rapid investments in this region from global tech giants.”

He explained, “We think that ClearTax is also well-positioned to enter the Middle East market considering the increasing push on digital payments, digitization of business processes, government mandates on digitization of tax and compliance, and overall increasing adoption of cloud-based technology solutions. We feel excited about a chance to play a role in this massive transformation and want to support the local authorities. ClearTax has a solid product roadmap for the Middle East and will launch a series of SaaS product suites in the next few quarters.”

He added, “We welcome Kora, Stripe, and our other incoming investors. Kora has strong experience in technology players in emerging markets. Stripe is a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet – we are excited to learn from both of them. This funding also gives us the fuel for our international expansion.”

Nitin Saigal, Kora’s Founder and CIO, said: “We are excited to partner with ClearTax as they innovate at scale in the SaaS ecosystem, enabling Enterprises and SMEs to automate their workflows around taxation invoicing and several other adjacencies. We look forward to ClearTax’s journey in the Indian and global markets.”

ClearTax is Asia’s largest and most reputable provider of tax and compliance technologies. For millions of businesses, it also provides software solutions for invoices, payments, and credit. In India, ClearTax serves over 3,000 major businesses, 60,000 chartered accountants/tax professionals, and 1 million small businesses with GST filing, e-invoicing, input tax credit claims, vendor management, and other services. Indian tax authorities have also recognized ClearTax as a direct API integration partner with the government’s technical infrastructure for e-invoicing and GST.

In the Middle East, the company will begin with electronic invoicing tools for medium to big businesses, then move on to VAT compliance, Accounts Payables, and Receivables automation, and B2B payments in the coming months. ClearTax aspires to create a global B2B Business Network that assists companies with taxation, compliance, procurement, invoicing, payments, and collections.

In Saudi Arabia, the company has already deployed its solution to generate electronic invoices in accordance with the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) rules. The technology platform is available in both English and Arabic and is housed on cloud servers in the Kingdom.

In the previous 18 months, ClearTax’s SaaS platform has grown fivefold, adding 3,000+ significant enterprise customers. With a GMV of $400 billion, the ClearTax platform now processes over 10% of India’s commercial bills. ClearTax is developing solutions that can be easily linked with any ERP/POS system and offers AI-powered smart validations and reconciliations to ensure optimum efficiency and accuracy in E-invoicing and VAT filing. ClearTax plans to launch its E-invoicing and VAT services in the UAE by the middle of 2022.