An online tax filing and planning platform, Quicko, recently fetched an investment amounting to Rs. 2 Crores from Rainmatter. Rainmatter is a Bengaluru based fin-tech fund and incubator that was developed by online stock trading start-up, Zerodha. The company offers mentorship, well-equipped workspaces, and investment ($100K-$1M) to creative start-ups in the capital markets in exchange for minority stakes.
This investment in Quicko is the fifteenth such investment infusion for Rainmatter. The start-up plans to utilize the funding to develop its income tax return filing service for the online trading community, with a combination that enables Zerodha clients to upload their Profit & Loss information and file their income tax returns with ease.
The start-up is also ardently looking at Account Aggregators (AA) in order to source all financial data of a client from one specific source. They are in the process of developing a freemium model where individuals can file their own tax returns for free but pay it a fee to import all their investment data and financial information.
Quicko claims to offer its services at cost-effective prices than any CA in the market. The start-up charges traders nearly INR 2,500 for tax fillings, whereas traditional Chartered Accountant charges nearly INR 15-20 K for the same service to the users.
Rainmatter had also participated in a $1 million seed round this July in commodity procurement Procol Tech Pvt Ltd, in participation with VC firm Blume Ventures. And also had previously invested Rs 4 Crore in Finception. Through Rainmatter, Zerodha has previously invested between $100K to $1 M for a minority stake in start-ups that are making an effort to introduce more Indians to invest in mutual funds, stocks, bonds, G-Secs, ETFs and also participate in the growing economy more directly.
So far, Rainmatter has offered funds to start-ups like options trading platform Sensibull, micro-savings platform Balance, credit card bill payment app CRED, thematic investment platform Smallcase and online marketplace for fixed income instruments GoldenPi.
Quicko in its previous operations has already benefitted nearly 11,000 traders in filing their income tax returns in the past one year. The start-up has also set up a platform, learn.quicko.com, to aware and inspire taxpayers on significant tax matters such as Refunds, Due Dates, Income Tax Forms and Other Penalties.
The start-up mentioned that salaried individuals can fill and upload Form 16, review and file ITR in just a matter of a few minutes. The start-up also benefits the stock traders in figuring the accurate ITR forms, the applicability of tax audits, file tax returns including the Balance sheet and Profit and Loss sheet and reminds the due dates.
The Ahmedabad-based start-up, Quicko, which was incorporated in 2015, is a comprehensive tax filing medium for GST, Income Tax and TDS filing. Businesses and individuals can efficiently plan, devise, and file GST, ITR and TDS return on Quicko free of cost. The space of tax filing, the start-up competes with the likes of ClearTax that in October 2018 fetched $50 million led by Hong Kong-based investment company Composite Capital. Other competitors include myITreturn and H&R Block India among others in the market.
Commenting on the investment, Nithin Kamath, CEO, and Founder, Zerodha, mentioned that in India most traders are usually muddled about their tax calculations. Trading taxes can often get tricky as the rules and laws vary contingent on the asset class such as equity vs real estate vs derivative, nature of the trading activity (non-speculative vs speculative), the applicability of tax audit and turnover limits. Zerodha can now provide its potential clients an easier means to file taxes via Quicko.
Further adding on, Vishvajit Sonagara, Founder of Quicko, mentioned that the start-up is very excited to associate with Zarodha to simplify tax filing for traders. The start-up desires to benefit traders in filing their Income Tax returns easily by importing Tax profit and loss via their Zerodha account.
