ARCHIT GUPTA, founder & CEO of Clear, and co-founders Srivatsan Chari and Ankit Solanki, have not been in the limelight of late. Not many know that Clear is the changed name of Cleartax, launched in 2011. It is no longer just an income tax return (ITR) filing firm. Co-founders have transformed it into an enterprises-first SAAS (software-as-a-service) firm offering GST/TDS compliance, e-invoicing & e-way bill services, among others. “Half of our products have nothing to do with taxes,” says Ankit.

Among changes introduced over last couple of years is monetising the consumer tax base. They started charging for ITR filing. “It has made our business cash-flow positive and profitable on the consumer side,” says Archit.

The turning point was implementation of GST in 2017 that made tax compliance difficult. “Since companies value technology and can pay, we decided to invest heavily in capex and technology, to offer the best GST products,” says Srivatsan.
By now the co-founders had learnt to dream big. Global expansion became a key agenda. Middle East is the company’s first target; it has forayed into Saudi Arabia. Clear has acquired two companies, xpedize and cimplyfive. Xpedize offers supply chain financing. Cimplyfive is into corporate compliance. Under Srivatsan’s leadership, the company launched Clear Finance Cloud and Clear Capture. “Both will digitise CFO’s office and GST compliance as well as accounts payable,” he says. The next goal is to make the company profitable before they plan for the IPO. — Aprajita Sharma