French startup dew It recently closed a new $44 million (€40 million) financing round led by BlackFin Capital Partners. Indy started out as an automated accounting platform for freelancers and other freelancers.
But the company has been slowly iterating its product to become a comprehensive platform for freelancers, from accounting to company creation, tax preparation, invoicing, and (coming soon) business banking. It’s an interesting example of the positive effects of bundling in a SaaS company. It can inspire other entrepreneurs dealing with a highly fragmented market of potential customers.
As long as you’re running a business without any employees, Indy wants to give you all the administrative and financial tools you need to run your business. It is designed for freelancers, freelancers, doctors, architects, lawyers, etc.
Other investors in the latest funding round include La Maison and iXO. Indy closed its funding round this summer. While the startup did not want to share its valuation, the company said it was higher than the company’s valuation after the previous funding round of €35 million ($38.3 million at today’s exchange rate).
Indy’s main advantage remains its automated accounting feature. When you create an account, you can automatically start syncing your bank account with Indy so that past and future transactions are automatically fetched.
Next, Indy attempts to automatically categorize each transaction. In some cases, users have to indicate the type of transaction in the application. Customers add a receipt to each transaction – VAT is automatically detected and the receipts are then automatically archived and can be used in the event of a tax audit.
At the end of the year, Indy can pre-fill out tax forms and send them directly to the Corporate Tax Department. Likewise, Indy handles VAT returns.
Indy’s accounting tools are free to use forever. Once you want to create and file tax forms, you have to pay a monthly subscription. But it’s still much cheaper than hiring an accountant.
“Since we are on average four to five times cheaper than a chartered accountant for the tax preparation part, there are many people who use our free services who will also subscribe to our paid services. “But it is up to them, they can also decide to hire an accountant,” he said. As Indy co-founder and CEO Kom Fokey told me.
Rules of the game for product assembly
Through this simple product positioning, Indy was able to convince tens of thousands of paid subscribers. But the company did not sit idly by as it rolled out other products to turn Indy into a product portfolio.
For example, you can now create quotes and invoices from Indy and store them in your user account. Of course, you can always use Word or Excel for these documents, but there are some benefits to having these documents right in Indy. For example, when a customer pays an invoice via bank transfer, Indy can automatically mark the invoice as paid.
Likewise, before you can use a product like Indy, you actually need a company to bill customers. In France, even if you are a part-time freelancer looking for extra income, there is some paperwork and there are multiple options.
Startup helps you make the right decisions when creating your company. Unlike traditional business creation services, Indy offers this service for free as long as you start a subscription – but you can cancel that subscription whenever you want.
These products increase product adhesion and users are more likely to recommend Indy to other self-employed people. Likewise, the sales funnel works particularly well, as a large portion of people who want to become freelancers will have to opt for a company creation service first.
The next step is clear: Indy will become a fintech startup. In just a few months, the startup will offer a free business bank account with a payment card. Again, it makes sense to bundle this service as existing customers have to switch between their banking app and Indy to control their finances.
Existing companies involved in banking, e.g Conto And It shines In France, great emphasis is placed on small and medium-sized enterprises. They don’t have a core product offering with basic features that would work well for freelancers. “Business banking for self-employed people is very basic – they want to send money via transfer, receive money via transfer, get a payment card, and that’s it,” Fouquet said.
Indy can then leverage this fintech angle into other services. For example, the company can offer new payment methods for bills, such as online card payments, QR code-based payments or using a smartphone as a contactless card reader.
“Because we offer all of these features in the same service, we achieve huge economies of scale and save money on user acquisition costs,” Fouquet said. “This means we can offer a full range of services for free – services that would be paid for elsewhere. At the same time, we have a very healthy and highly scalable model.
Some companies have identified the same problem in the United States, e.g is found And Layla Both have raised around $80 million according to Crunchbase data. Indy will not compete head-to-head with these well-capitalized companies. Instead, the French startup is looking to other European countries to see if it can replicate its services in other markets.
But Indy is still very focused on its home market where there are millions of freelancers in France. The market opportunity is really important. It seems that Indy has found the right distribution strategy.