Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures-backed Velocity Commits ₹100 Cr to Scale AI-Led Shipping, Targets 5X Growth in 2026

Velocity, India’s leading e-commerce enablement platform has announced a ₹100 crore investment to scale Velocity Shipping (formerly Shipfast), as it doubles down on advancing faster, more reliable and transparent AI-led logistics for digital-first brands. The investment will be deployed over the next 2 years and will be funded entirely through internal cash reserves and revenues from Velocity’s core businesses.

Since its launch in 2025, Velocity Shipping has seen strong adoption, with 900+ brands onboarded so far, with around 60% of these coming from Velocity’s existing ecosystem. The platform is currently witnessing 70% month-on-month growth in order volumes and now contributes nearly 40% of Velocity’s overall revenues. In December 2025 alone, Velocity Shipping processed over 10 lakh orders, placing Velocity among India’s top three shipping aggregators by order volume.

To support this momentum, the ₹100 crore investment will be directed toward strategic hiring, product development, and AI-led innovation across the logistics value-chain. Velocity plans to double its shipping team and has already made senior hires from NimbusPost, Pickrr, Delhivery and Shiprocket as it strengthens its shipping and last-mile capabilities. The company is also targeting a 5x increase in monthly shipping volumes in CY26.

“We started Velocity by solving one of the biggest bottlenecks for digital-first brands: access to capital. As we worked closely with thousands of founders, it became clear that logistics and fulfilment were equally critical constraints to growth, but existing solutions needed to evolve to better support digital-first brands. Velocity Shipping was built as a strong, operator-first alternative to existing shipping solutions, with reliability and accountability at its core,” said Abhiroop Medhekar, Co-Founder and CEO, Velocity.

“Its rapid adoption has reinforced our belief in shipping as a major growth engine for Velocity. This ₹100 crore commitment reflects our long-term conviction to double down on shipping as we build category-defining digital infrastructure for India's e-commerce ecosystem,” Medhekar added.

Logistics has become a Growth Bottleneck for D2C Brands

Rising consumer expectations around delivery speed have fundamentally reshaped how digital-first brands compete online. Faster Shipping directly impacts purchase completion, customer experience, delivery performance and repeat purchases. Yet brands were expected to deal with missed pickups, fake delivery attempts, slow escalations and delayed COD settlements -often shrugged off as ‘industry reality’.

This gap has tangible business consequences for D2C businesses, directly impacting growth and customer trust. According to the E-Commerce Trends Report 2025 by DHL eCommerce, 81% of shoppers abandon their carts if their preferred delivery option isn’t available.

Velocity Shipping was co-created with brands from Velocity’s own portfolio to address these challenges through a tech-first, transparent approach to logistics.

How Velocity Shipping fills the gap

Velocity Shipping enables same-day, next-day, express and standard deliveries helping brands meet rising consumer expectations without adding operational complexity. The platform works with multiple third-party logistics (3PL) partners, including Delhivery, Ekart, Amazon, Blue Dart, Blitz, Pikndel and XpressBees, allowing brands to access the best-performing courier networks across regions through a single interface and and serves over 19,000 pincodes pan-India.

A central differentiation in how the platform solves long-standing inefficiencies across the shipping lifecycle is its AI-powered intervention layer, which operates across the entire order journey. The system validates addresses, uses local-language voice agents (Vani AI developed by Velocity’s in-house tech team) to urge the conversion of COD orders to prepaid, and automatically verifies non-delivery reports. When a shipment is marked as an NDR or RTO, the system automatically triggers an AI call to the customer to verify the issue, helping identify false delivery attempts or premature returns.

AI-led calling helps solve failed deliveries and reduce RTO’s

Orders verified via WhatsApp and AI-led calls are delivered at 1.85x the rate of unverified orders, based on over 2.4 lakh AI-assisted verification calls completed on the platform. This proactive intervention with the platform has achieved 60-70% recovery of failed deliveries where the buyer is still interested and a 8-10 percentage point reduction in return-to-origin rates, directly impacting both customer experience and brand profitability for digital-first brands.

Velocity Shipping also tackles one of the biggest pain points in logistics for digital-first businesses: transparency and opacity in shipping aggregation models. In traditional models, weight discrepancies raised by courier partners often result in automatic deductions, with brands left to reconcile charges later. Velocity Shipping reverses this approach. Billing adjustments are made only after an AI-led verification of sorter images supplied by the courier partners, ensuring discrepancies are reviewed, validated, and resolved transparently.

Founded in 2020, Velocity has evolved into a full-stack growth enablement platform for digital-first brands across capital, logistics, insights and AI-led solutions. Its financing business is expected to turn profitable in CY26.

About Velocity

Velocity is India’s leading e-commerce enablement platform, empowering digital-first businesses with fast, flexible non-dilutive capital, logistics, and AI-powered tools to scale efficiently. Founded in 2020 by IIT Bombay alumni Abhiroop Medhekar, Atul Khichariya, and Saurav Swaroop, Velocity’s mission is to accelerate the growth of India’s e-commerce ecosystem.

Backed by Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, Velocity has raised $30+ Million so far and has partnered with 4,000+ D2C and digital-first brands, disbursing over ₹1,100 crore in funding. Beyond capital, the company offers a comprehensive suite of products—Velocity Shipping for AI-driven shipping and logistics, Velocity Insights for actionable business intelligence and Vani AI, an AI-powered telecalling solution for personalized customer engagement. Some of the leading D2C brands Velocity has supported include Frido, Bellavita, Koskii, Bewakoof, Soulflower, Rynox Gears, NasherMiles, Hammer, Zlade, The Bear House, Off Duty, and Chumbak.

For more information, visit: https://www.velocity.in/

D2C Brand Waterscience Secures ₹1.4 Crores in Investment from Peter Thiel-backed Velocity

• The company aims to utilise the funds to drive growth, marketing campaigns and new product category expansion

WaterScience, India’s leading brand in non-drinking water filtration, today announced that it has secured ₹1.4 crores in funding from Velocity, a growth capital platform backed by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.

The investment will enable WaterScience to accelerate its growth trajectory, strengthen brand marketing initiatives, and introduce new product categories to become a 360-degree water solutions company.

Founded in 2014, WaterScience pioneered the shower and tap filter category in India, addressing critical water quality issues that affect over 95% of household water use beyond drinking. Today, the company offers more than 40 products across categories including shower & tap filters, appliance filters, kitchen filters, water softeners, and whole-house filtration systems for hard water, chlorine & other contaminants.

Range of solutions for Hard-water, chlorine & sediments

Currently, WaterScience products are present in over 2 million Indian homes, and the company is aiming to add 1 million more homes in FY25-26.

Commenting on the announcement, Pavithra Rao, Co-Founder, WaterScience, said, “This funding is a strong validation of our mission to make water safer and healthier for every Indian home. With Velocity’s support, we will scale faster and innovate across new categories, ensuring that WaterScience continues to set the benchmark for water solutions in India. Having already reached 2 million homes, we are excited to add another 1 million this year.”

Atul Khichariya, Co-Founder and COO Velocity, added, “We have a long-standing partnership with WaterScience, a true category creator in India’s water solutions space. Their growth trajectory and focus on innovation demonstrate a strong commitment to addressing the vast need gap in non-drinking water filtration. We are proud to have been part of their journey and look forward to supporting their next phase of expansion.”

The non-drinking water filtration segment which accounts for 95% of household consumption through bathing, washing, and cleaning activities largely remains unaddressed. With hard water affecting 70% of Indian homes and causing widespread skin, hair, and appliance damage, the market for whole-home water solutions is projected to grow at 15% CAGR through 2028, creating a significant opportunity for specialized players.

With a 70% Year-on-Year growth and strong presence across marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Shopify, and more than 1,000 offline retailers, WaterScience has established itself as the one of the leading brands in non-drinking water filtration in India. The fresh capital will fuel expansion into new markets, strengthen its digital and offline presence, and power innovation for the next phase of growth.

About WaterScience

WaterScience is India’s No. 1 brand in non-drinking water filtration. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the company designs and manufactures innovative products for hard water, chlorine & other contaminants at every point of use in the home. Its vision is to become a 360-degree water solutions brand, addressing both drinking and non-drinking water needs.

For more information, visit: https://www.waterscience.in/

About Velocity

Velocity is India’s leading e-commerce enablement platform, empowering digital-first businesses with fast, flexible non-dilutive capital, logistics, and AI-powered tools to scale efficiently. Founded in 2020 by IIT Bombay alumni Abhiroop Medhekar, Atul Khichariya, and Saurav Swaroop, Velocity’s mission is to accelerate the growth of India’s e-commerce ecosystem.

Backed by Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, Velocity has partnered with 4,000+ D2C and digital-first brands, disbursing over ₹1,100 crore in funding. Beyond capital, the company offers a comprehensive suite of products Shipfast for AI-driven shipping and logistics, Velocity Insights for actionable business intelligence and Vani AI, an award-winning AI-powered telecalling solution for personalized customer engagement. Some of the leading D2C brands Velocity has supported include Soulflower, Rynox Gears, NasherMiles, Hammer, Zlade, The Bear House, Off Duty, and Chumbak.

For more information, visit: https://www.velocity.in/

NFT Unit of SoftBank-Naver JV LINE NEXT Secures $140 Mn from Peter Thiel-backed Crescendo Equity Partners

Investment marks the largest in Asian blockchain and Web3 industry this year

Investment is led by Crescendo Equity Partners, a Peter Thiel-backed private equity firm, citing LINE’s strategies and vision for Web3 popularization

LINE NEXT Corporation., the NFT unit of a joint venture between SoftBank and South Korea-based Naver which is dedicated to developing and expanding the NFT ecosystem, announced that it has secured a USD140 million investment from a consortium led by the private equity firm Crescendo Equity Partners (“Crescendo”).

The investment represents the largest funding round in the Asian blockchain Web3 industry for this year. With the raised funds, LINE NEXT aims to expand its global business and develop new services as part of its plan to popularize the Web3 ecosystem.

First up, LINE NEXT plans to officially launch its global NFT platform DOSI in January 2024, offering a digital marketplace where a wide range of digital products can be traded. Integrating with Japan’s NFT marketplace LINE NFT, DOSI will be offered as a mobile app to users around the world. In addition, LINE NEXT will provide new solutions to help services and brands give ownership directly to existing digital products and trade them, making it easier to introduce Web3 to their services.

With this investment, LINE NEXT also plans to introduce new services to further accelerate Web3 popularization. These include introducing a social app that allows users to communicate based on the characters they made utilizing AI technology and launching new Web3 games utilizing BROWN & FRIENDS characters that anyone can enjoy.

LINE NEXT plans to build these services based on the public blockchain Finschia, and LINE NEXT and Crescendo will participate in the Finschia Foundation as governance members, contributing to the expansion of its ecosystem.

Crescendo, sponsored by Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, invests with exceptional sector expertise and access to well-established “tech-ecosystem” consisting of both local and global networks. Crescendo focuses on discovering small to mid-cap technology companies and developing them to become global champions.

"LINE’s global competitiveness and its vision to lead Web3 services were the investment thesis," said Kevin Lee, the managing partner of Crescendo. He added that “We hope to build a standard for Web3 apps that general users can easily use and adopt blockchain to all sorts of services and brands of Web2.” 

"It is significant that we were able to secure this funding in the context of a globally contracting investment environment," said Youngsu Ko, CEO of LINE NEXT. "We plan to use this opportunity to further popularize Web3 and develop a new service ecosystem where users own the value of their digital goods."

LINE NEXT has been at the forefront of Web3 popularization through a range of global services based on DOSI. It currently has 5.5 million users worldwide and more than 470,000 cumulative transactions, continuing its rapid growth just one year since beta service began.

Based in Korea, LINE NEXT Corporation is focused on Web3 business strategy and planning. With a subsidiary in the U.S operating the global NFT platform business and an office in Japan, LINE NEXT aims to develop the Web3 ecosystem and popularize it for all. 

CRESCENDO EQUITY PARTNERS LIMITED ( referred as "Crescendo" in this article) is a technology focused private equity firm sponsored by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies. Crescendo mainly invests in companies with high growth potential with exceptional technologies. Target sectors include traditional B2B hardware sectors such as semiconductors and parts and materials, as well as software sectors that are new growth engines such as IT security and factory automation. As of November 2023, assets under management reached about 1.8 trillion won. (Based on the cumulative committed amount)

In Biggest Indian Hardware Startup Fundraise, Grey Orange Raises $140 Mn from Peter Thiel's Firm

California, US-based Mithril Capital Management LLC, an investment firm founded by Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan, has led a $140 million (~ Rs. 1,010 crores) Series C funding of Gurgaon-based robotics startup Grey Orange, making it the biggest fundraise by an Indian hardware startup to date. Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Mitsubishi and existing investor Blume Ventures also participated in this round. Royan from Mithril will join the Grey Orange board.

With this, Grey Orange has also become highest funded robotic startup in India and its valuation estimated to be between $400 million and $500 million, according to a report by Economic Times.

The startup will use the freshly raised capital in getting its own manufacturing supply chain and into R&D. The startup also plans to double down investments in its Boston R&D center, as well as into centers in India and Singapore.

Mithril, Japan's Mitsubishi and Binny Bansal have joined in Grey Orange as new investors. Other existing investors in the startup include Tiger Global, Flipkart, Mitsubishi and Project Verte.

Binny Bansal, Flipkart co-founder and Group CEO said, “As an entrepreneur myself, I have closely followed how Samay and Akash have built and grown GreyOrange to become an international technology company with customers across the world. I look forward to supporting and witnessing the new phase of their growth. The team will build on its strengths, especially in AI and machine learning, to launch new generation products for flexible automation.”

Founded in 2011, by Akash Gupta, Samay Kohli and Wolfgang Hoeltgen, GreyOrange is a 300+ employee startup creating hardware & software products for warehousing industry. The startup is headquartered in Singapore, with offices in India, Japan, Germany, and the US.

In September last year, we reported that Japan’s largest conglomerate Mitsubishi is considering acquiring a minority stake in GreyOrange Robotics. Since then, Mitsubishi was contemplating making an investment of less than $20 million that eventually led to this funding.

Prior to this in 2015, Grey Orange raised $30 million in a round led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from existing investors Blume Ventures. In 2013, Grey Orange Robotics received angel funding from a consortium of investors led by Blume Ventures and BITS Spark Angels followed by funding of about Rs 54 crore in the round led by Tiger Global and Blume Ventures.

With its industrial automation solutions, Grey Orange counts Aramex, DTDC, Flipkart, Jabong, Mahindra, Myntra, and Pepperfry amongst its client list. GreyOrange's products include - 'Butler' and 'Linear Sorter'. While Sorter is a conveyor belt system fitted with robotic arms and advanced tools like dimensioning and weighing modules capable of sorting up to 6,000 packages per hour, Butler is said to be an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous robot that "optimizes the supply chain process from inventory storage and replenishment to order picking."

[caption id="attachment_126049" align="aligncenter" width="700"] GreyOrange intelligent robotics systems deliver flexible, cost-effective supply chains to expedite distribution and fulfillment processes[/caption]

Samay Kohli, Co-Founder and CEO, GreyOrange said, “We are fortunate to have an experienced management team and investors with a common vision to build the next generation of flexible supply chain systems. Having a veteran board member and strategist like Ajay Royan join the board will help fulfill that vision faster. Fundraising events are important milestones in a company’s journey, and for GreyOrange, the funds will allow us to continue to invest in our R&D and supply chain to maintain our market-leading position.”

“As a global investor focused on emerging category leaders, Mithril is proud to partner with the GreyOrange team to advance our shared vision of a universal platform for flexible automation. As online and offline channels converge across a wide range of industries, we are excited to support robotic solutions that thoughtfully bridge the world of bits and the world of atoms, driving better health, safety and efficiency for workers and customers alike,” Ajay Royan said in a media statement.

Mithril is a global investment firm founded by Ajay Royan and Peter Thiel. The firm provide capital to leading growth companies by partnering with teams "who use technology to build transformative and durable businesses, often in industries long overdue for change", as mentioned the firm's Linkedin company page.

Peter, who chairs Mithril’s investment committee, cofounded PayPal and Palantir Technologies, which is a CIA-backed big data startup valued at $20 billion. He was the first outside investor in Facebook, and has made numerous other investments in highly successful technology companies. He created the Thiel Fellowship and established and funds the Thiel Foundation. He was educated at Stanford University.

Source - Grey Orange

In Biggest Indian Hardware Startup Fundraise, Grey Orange Raises $140 Mn from Peter Thiel's Firm

California, US-based Mithril Capital Management LLC, an investment firm founded by Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan, has led a $140 million (~ Rs. 1,010 crores) Series C funding of Gurgaon-based robotics startup Grey Orange, making it the biggest fundraise by an Indian hardware startup to date. Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Mitsubishi and existing investor Blume Ventures also participated in this round. Royan from Mithril will join the Grey Orange board.

With this, Grey Orange has also become highest funded robotic startup in India and its valuation estimated to be between $400 million and $500 million, according to a report by Economic Times.

The startup will use the freshly raised capital in getting its own manufacturing supply chain and into R&D. The startup also plans to double down investments in its Boston R&D center, as well as into centers in India and Singapore.

Mithril, Japan's Mitsubishi and Binny Bansal have joined in Grey Orange as new investors. Other existing investors in the startup include Tiger Global, Flipkart, Mitsubishi and Project Verte.

Binny Bansal, Flipkart co-founder and Group CEO said, “As an entrepreneur myself, I have closely followed how Samay and Akash have built and grown GreyOrange to become an international technology company with customers across the world. I look forward to supporting and witnessing the new phase of their growth. The team will build on its strengths, especially in AI and machine learning, to launch new generation products for flexible automation.”

Founded in 2011, by Akash Gupta, Samay Kohli and Wolfgang Hoeltgen, GreyOrange is a 300+ employee startup creating hardware & software products for warehousing industry. The startup is headquartered in Singapore, with offices in India, Japan, Germany, and the US.

In September last year, we reported that Japan’s largest conglomerate Mitsubishi is considering acquiring a minority stake in GreyOrange Robotics. Since then, Mitsubishi was contemplating making an investment of less than $20 million that eventually led to this funding.

Prior to this in 2015, Grey Orange raised $30 million in a round led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from existing investors Blume Ventures. In 2013, Grey Orange Robotics received angel funding from a consortium of investors led by Blume Ventures and BITS Spark Angels followed by funding of about Rs 54 crore in the round led by Tiger Global and Blume Ventures.

With its industrial automation solutions, Grey Orange counts Aramex, DTDC, Flipkart, Jabong, Mahindra, Myntra, and Pepperfry amongst its client list. GreyOrange's products include - 'Butler' and 'Linear Sorter'. While Sorter is a conveyor belt system fitted with robotic arms and advanced tools like dimensioning and weighing modules capable of sorting up to 6,000 packages per hour, Butler is said to be an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous robot that "optimizes the supply chain process from inventory storage and replenishment to order picking."

[caption id="attachment_126049" align="aligncenter" width="700"] GreyOrange intelligent robotics systems deliver flexible, cost-effective supply chains to expedite distribution and fulfillment processes[/caption]

Samay Kohli, Co-Founder and CEO, GreyOrange said, “We are fortunate to have an experienced management team and investors with a common vision to build the next generation of flexible supply chain systems. Having a veteran board member and strategist like Ajay Royan join the board will help fulfill that vision faster. Fundraising events are important milestones in a company’s journey, and for GreyOrange, the funds will allow us to continue to invest in our R&D and supply chain to maintain our market-leading position.”

“As a global investor focused on emerging category leaders, Mithril is proud to partner with the GreyOrange team to advance our shared vision of a universal platform for flexible automation. As online and offline channels converge across a wide range of industries, we are excited to support robotic solutions that thoughtfully bridge the world of bits and the world of atoms, driving better health, safety and efficiency for workers and customers alike,” Ajay Royan said in a media statement.

Mithril is a global investment firm founded by Ajay Royan and Peter Thiel. The firm provide capital to leading growth companies by partnering with teams "who use technology to build transformative and durable businesses, often in industries long overdue for change", as mentioned the firm's Linkedin company page.

Peter, who chairs Mithril’s investment committee, cofounded PayPal and Palantir Technologies, which is a CIA-backed big data startup valued at $20 billion. He was the first outside investor in Facebook, and has made numerous other investments in highly successful technology companies. He created the Thiel Fellowship and established and funds the Thiel Foundation. He was educated at Stanford University.

Source - Grey Orange

Peter Thiel-Backed ClearTax Acquires Bengaluru-based Startup TOOTL

ClearTax, a New Delhi-based fintech startup that helps individuals and businesses file tax returns online, has acquired Bengaluru-based Greeblu Enterprises Pvt. Ltd, which runs TOOTL, an app that helps to personalize content.

The terms and size of the deal have not been disclosed.

ClearTax said in a statement it would use TOOTL’s technology to curate personalized tax, finance and compliance related content on its website by integrating TOOTL’s back-end tech stacks.

This is ClearTax’s first acquisition since its inception in 2011. The firm had raised $12 million in its series A funding round led by SAIF Partners in June 2016.

It raised an additional $3.3 million in 2016 from Sequoia Capital India, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund Angel, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, and WhatsApp’s business head Neeraj Arora among others.

ClearTax was also one of the early Indian start-ups to enter Silicon Valley-based tech accelerator Y Combinator in 2014. Although the firm started off as a tax compliance and advisory service, it later branched into a wide portfolio of products and services like mutual funds, GST software, E-WayBill generator, Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) utility and business compliance services.

Currently, ClearTax claims to have over 2.5 million registered users using its tax filing and compliance services, while its GST compliance solution is being used by 360,000 businesses, 22,000 accountants tax professionals, and over 500 large enterprises.

ClearTax said TOOTL’s acquisition was aimed at improving the overall user experience on the platform and that it plans to add more tweaks to improve the user experience.

Launched by Arpit Mehta and Parijat Banerjee, TOOTL is a mobile app that understands user preferences to provide relevant content feeds across categories like movies and entertainment, sports, events, and others.

Archit Gupta, chief executive of Cleartax, said TOOTL’s algorithm has added great value to ClearTax’s existing systems, especially around content.

“We will utilize the TOOTL technology to enhance customer engagement and provide tailored content based on income, financial goals, age and other parameters. This would help our customers make informed financial decisions, taking us a step closer to our mission of simplifying finance for Indians,” Gupta added.

Notably, in last one month this is third fintech startup acquisition, as last month US-based digital payment company Wibmo Inc has bought Gurgaon-based mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) payment solution startup Mypoolin in a cash and stock deal valued above $1 million. Prior to this, UK-based firm Page Solutions acquired Mumbai-based blockchain startup Aetlo Tech for undisclosed amount.

The above news was first reported in Live Mint.

Peter Thiel-Backed ClearTax Acquires Bengaluru-based Startup TOOTL

ClearTax, a New Delhi-based fintech startup that helps individuals and businesses file tax returns online, has acquired Bengaluru-based Greeblu Enterprises Pvt. Ltd, which runs TOOTL, an app that helps to personalize content.

The terms and size of the deal have not been disclosed.

ClearTax said in a statement it would use TOOTL’s technology to curate personalized tax, finance and compliance related content on its website by integrating TOOTL’s back-end tech stacks.

This is ClearTax’s first acquisition since its inception in 2011. The firm had raised $12 million in its series A funding round led by SAIF Partners in June 2016.

It raised an additional $3.3 million in 2016 from Sequoia Capital India, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund Angel, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, and WhatsApp’s business head Neeraj Arora among others.

ClearTax was also one of the early Indian start-ups to enter Silicon Valley-based tech accelerator Y Combinator in 2014. Although the firm started off as a tax compliance and advisory service, it later branched into a wide portfolio of products and services like mutual funds, GST software, E-WayBill generator, Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) utility and business compliance services.

Currently, ClearTax claims to have over 2.5 million registered users using its tax filing and compliance services, while its GST compliance solution is being used by 360,000 businesses, 22,000 accountants tax professionals, and over 500 large enterprises.

ClearTax said TOOTL’s acquisition was aimed at improving the overall user experience on the platform and that it plans to add more tweaks to improve the user experience.

Launched by Arpit Mehta and Parijat Banerjee, TOOTL is a mobile app that understands user preferences to provide relevant content feeds across categories like movies and entertainment, sports, events, and others.

Archit Gupta, chief executive of Cleartax, said TOOTL’s algorithm has added great value to ClearTax’s existing systems, especially around content.

“We will utilize the TOOTL technology to enhance customer engagement and provide tailored content based on income, financial goals, age and other parameters. This would help our customers make informed financial decisions, taking us a step closer to our mission of simplifying finance for Indians,” Gupta added.

Notably, in last one month this is third fintech startup acquisition, as last month US-based digital payment company Wibmo Inc has bought Gurgaon-based mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) payment solution startup Mypoolin in a cash and stock deal valued above $1 million. Prior to this, UK-based firm Page Solutions acquired Mumbai-based blockchain startup Aetlo Tech for undisclosed amount.

The above news was first reported in Live Mint.

ClearTax Gets $2M in Series A Funding from Sequoia Capital India and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund Angel

ClearTax, India’s leading Income Tax Returns e-filing website, has raised $2 million in a series A round of funding from venture capital firms Sequoia Capital India, and Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund Angel, a seed stage venture firm. This is Founders Fund Angel’s first investment in an Indian startup. It’s parent arm, Founders Fund, has invested in firms like data analytics startup Palantir, payments company Stripe and fitness wearable maker Misfit.


Defmacro Software Pvt. Ltd. backed ClearTax has recently raised $1.3 million in angel funding from Silicon Valley-based angel investors, including PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Whatsapp’s business head Neeraj Arora, and AngelList founder Naval Ravikant, among others.

ClearTax helps Individuals file their Tax returns online via their website – all a user has to do is upload their Form-16 PDF and the ClearTax software prepares the tax return instantly and automatically. The startup processed tax return e-filings for 300,000 individuals in assessment year 2014-15. An estimated 1 million users filed their returns using the site for the assessment year 2015-16. The company was founded in 2011 by Archit Gupta along with his father Raja Ram Gupta, a Chartered Accountant; Srivatsan Chari; and Ankit Solanki. Archit is an IIT Guwahati alumnus who went on to pursue a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin- Madison.

The firm, which currently employs 95 people, plans to add about 200 more in the next six months. It claims 1 million users for its product for individuals, and about 10,000 chartered accountant firms. “We hope to grow the user base to about 50 lakh people by 2017. We want to fix people’s poor relationship with their money because of the complexity involved in handling in it, by making the whole process simple,” said Archit Gupta, chief executive officer, ClearTax.

Recently, the company has also launched its 2G optimized mobile app to file taxes even in offline mode.

Image Source: ShutterStock