LegalRaasta, an online consultancy firm for business and legal matters, has raised a new Series A funding round of ₹32 crore from Impanix Capital. The funding will be used by the company to expand its business of providing GST-compliance software for small and medium enterprises and chartered accountants.
The newly raised funding will also be used by the company towards business development, strengthening the technology team with addition of 300 members over the next six months and marketing.
Commenting on this development, Himanshu Jain, co-founder of LegalRaasta, said,
We have also applied recent ly as a GST su ly as a GST suvidha provider (GSP) as GSTN has relaxed the norms for paid-up capital and the average turnover over the last three years. With our functionalities, on the ASP side, we are targeting mid-tier enterprises with an annual turnover of Rs.100-500 crore, as the prices of software developed by larger entities is prohibitive for them. We are also targeting CA firms who can use our software for filing returns for multiple clients.
Founded in 2015, the company has served close to 80,000 SMEs with ITR and TDS softwares. It is also registered as an application service provider (ASP) as part of the government’s GST Network, which will be utilised by businesses to file their returns as per goods and services tax (GST) laws.
The company is currently focusing on GST, which will subsume almost all indirect taxes in India, is seen as the single-biggest tax reform in the country since independence. It is all set for rollout in July.
LegalRaasta has also set up a 24×7 helpline for SMEs to get in touch with experts and get their queries on GST registration answered. It claims to have clocked revenues of nearly Rs 10 crore during FY2016-17. Its services include company registration, income tax return filing, tax deducted at sources filing and trademark, among others.
Last year, in April, the company had raised $1 million in its seed funding round from Praveen Khandelwal and Yatin Kumar. The money was used to strengthen its tax returns and marketplace verticals on the platform.
The legal and compliance service market in India is estimated at Rs 40,000 crore and is growing at 25% year on year. In addition, GST compliance is expected to be a Rs 17,000 crore market.
