French startup Indy has lately closed a brand new funding spherical of $44 million (€40 million) with BlackFin Capital Companions main the spherical. Indy began as an automatic accounting platform for freelancers and different self-employed individuals.
However the firm has been slowly iterating on its product to turn into an all-in-one platform for freelancers, from accounting to firm creation, tax preparation, invoicing and (quickly) enterprise banking. It’s an attention-grabbing instance of the constructive results of bundling in a software-as-a-service firm. And it may encourage different entrepreneurs addressing a extremely fragmented market of potential clients.
So long as you’re operating an organization with none worker, Indy needs to supply all the executive and finance instruments that you want to run your enterprise. It’s designed for freelancers, self-employed individuals, docs, architects, legal professionals, and many others.
Different traders within the current funding spherical embrace La Maison and iXO. Indy closed its funding spherical this summer season. Whereas the startup didn’t wish to share its valuation, the corporate stated that it’s increased than the corporate’s valuation after its earlier €35 million funding spherical ($38.3 million at at present’s trade fee).
Picture Credit: Indy
Indy’s core characteristic stays its automated accounting characteristic. Whenever you create an account, you possibly can routinely begin synchronizing your checking account with Indy in order that previous and future transactions are routinely fetched.
After that, Indy tries to categorize every transaction routinely. In some circumstances, customers have to point the kind of transaction within the app. Clients add a receipt to every transaction — VAT is routinely detected and receipts are then routinely archived and can be utilized within the occasion of a tax audit.
On the finish of the 12 months, Indy can pre-fill tax types and ship them to the company tax administration immediately. Equally, Indy handles VAT returns.
Indy’s accounting instruments are free to make use of ceaselessly. As quickly as you wish to generate tax types and submit them, you need to pay a month-to-month subscription. Nevertheless it stays less expensive than hiring an accountant.
“As we’re on common 4 to 5 occasions cheaper than a chartered accountant for the tax preparation half, there are various people who find themselves utilizing our free providers and who may even subscribe to our paid providers. Nevertheless it’s as much as them, they’ll additionally determine to rent an accountant,” Indy co-founder and CEO Côme Fouques informed me.
Product bundling playbook
With this straightforward product positioning, Indy managed to persuade tens of hundreds of paid subscribers. However the firm hasn’t been standing nonetheless because it rolled out different merchandise to show Indy right into a product suite.
As an example, now you can create quotes and invoices from Indy and retailer them in your person account. After all, you possibly can all the time use Phrase or Excel for these paperwork, however there are some advantages in having these paperwork in Indy immediately. As an example, when a consumer pays an bill with a financial institution switch, Indy can routinely mark an bill as paid.
Equally, earlier than you need to use a product like Indy, you really need an organization to invoice clients. In France, even should you’re a part-time freelancer searching for further earnings, there may be some paperwork concerned and there are a number of choices.
The startup helps you make the appropriate choices once you create your organization. In contrast to conventional firm creation providers, Indy presents this service without cost so long as you begin a subscription — however you possibly can cancel that subscription everytime you need.
These merchandise improve the product stickiness and customers usually tend to advocate Indy to different self-employed individuals. Equally, the gross sales funnel works significantly effectively as a superb portion of people that wish to turn into freelancers must decide an organization creation service first.
The following step is evident: Indy goes to turn into a fintech startup. In only a few months, the startup will provide a free enterprise checking account with a fee card. As soon as once more, it is sensible to bundle this service as present clients have to change between their banking app and Indy to manage their enterprise funds.
Present corporations engaged on enterprise banking, comparable to Qonto and Shine in France, focus closely on small and medium corporations. They don’t have a fundamental product providing with fundamental options that might work effectively for freelancers. “Enterprise banking for a self-employed particular person is fairly fundamental — they wish to ship cash by way of a switch, obtain cash by way of a switch, have a fee card, and that’s all there may be to it,” Fouques stated.
And Indy can then leverage this fintech angle for different providers. As an example, the corporate may provide new fee strategies for invoices, comparable to on-line card funds, QR code-based funds or utilizing the smartphone as a contactless card reader.
“As we provide all these options in the identical service, we make enormous economies of scale and we get monetary savings on person acquisition prices,” Fouques stated. “This implies we will provide a complete vary of providers freed from cost — providers which might in any other case be paid providers some place else. On the identical time now we have a hyper-healthy, hyper-scalable mannequin.”
Some corporations have recognized the identical downside within the U.S., comparable to Discovered and Lili — they’ve each raised round $80 million in line with Crunchbase knowledge. Indy isn’t going to compete head-to-head with these well-capitalized corporations. As a substitute, the French startup is different European nations to see if it may well replicate its service in different markets.
However Indy continues to be very a lot targeted on its residence market as there are tens of millions of self-employed individuals in France. The market alternative is already necessary. And it feels like Indy has discovered the appropriate distribution technique.
