EXCLUSIVE: Compliance tech platform IndiaFilings raises $4.3 mn

Business services platform IndiaFilings has raised Rs 32 crore ($4.3 million) in a pre-Series A round of investment from boutique investment banking firm CreedCap Asia Advisors, Singapore-headquartered venture capital firm Beenext and Mumbai-based family office Udtara Ventures.

This is the first-ever institutional investment funding raised by the company. A majority of this round involves a secondary component which is used to provide full exits to its early angel investors (founder’s parents).

Lionel Charles, co-founder and CEO, said the primary component will be utilised to accelerate growth across verticals and increase its paying customer base.

Founded in 2014, the company offers a slew of business registration and compliance services under three verticals. The oldest and largest vertical IndiaFilings is a unified platform for government services. It caters to company incorporation, GST, income tax and intellectual property services. Ledgers, a Software as a Service (SaaS) product, offers services such as GST invoicing and filing, payroll, inventory management, input tax reconciliation, payment gateway management, and connected banking. Ledgers is integrated with ICICI Bank and SBM Bank for connected banking, the GSTN Portal, Income Tax Portal and different payment gateway solutions. EQL, its newest vertical, offers a slew of financial products including pre-paid cards and neo banking.

“We believe in building affordable and accessible services for the masses. For instance, we have made it extremely fast, easy and affordable for people to register a business in India - which was not really the case when we started in 2014. Similarly, we believe there is a lot of headroom for such accessible and affordable solutions in the domain we operate,” Charles said.

With Rs 50 crore of revenue in financial year 2020-21, the seven-year-old company is profitable, Charles said. It employees over 500 people and operates in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra markets. He said the company has served over one lakh paid customers so far.

“The technology services market is ~3x larger than the software industry and India is yet to see 100 per cent adoption of DIY software. Platforms under EQL ensure that businesses are efficiently using all government services and therefore get to spend more time building their businesses. EQL is able to service businesses at 1/4th cost vs offline professional services market due to its robust tech platform coupled with well-trained agents assisting the customer. We have seen rapid adoption and healthy retention in the last 24 months,” Vishal Pereira, Managing Director at CreedCap Asia, said.

In the compliance tech and business services space, IndiaFilings is pitted against heavily funded Clear (formerly ClearTax), Kalaari Capital-backed Vakilsearch and a handful of others. In the business card market, it competes against a bunch of start-ups including Karbon Card, EnKash, and Razorpay.

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