INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Fyle, a Bangalore-headquartered startup that operates an expense management platform, has extended its previous financing round to add $4.5
million of new investment as it looks to court more clients in overseas markets.The additional $4.5 million tranche of investment was led by
U.S.-based hedge fund Steadview Capital, the startup said
Tiger Global, Freshworks and Pravega Ventures also participated in the round
The new tranche of investment, dubbed Series A1, means that the three-and-a-half-year-old startup has raised $8.7 million as part of its
Series A financing round, and $10.5 million to date.The SaaS startup offers an expense management platform that makes it easier for
employees of a firm to report their business expenses
The eponymous service supports a range of popular email providers, including G Suite and Office 365, and uses a proprietary technology to
scan and fetch details from emails, Yash Madhusudhan, co-founder and CEO of Fyle, demonstrated to TechCrunch last week.A user, for instance,
could open a flight ticket email and click on Fyle’s Chrome extension to fetch all details and report the expense in a single click in
As part of today’s announcement, Madhusudhan unveiled an integration with WhatsApp
Users will now be able to take pictures of their tickets and other things and forward it to Fyle, which will quickly scan and report expense
filings for them.These integrations come in handy to users
“Eighty percent to ninety percent of a user’s spending patterns land on their email and messaging clients
And traditionally it has been a pain point for them to get done with their expense filings
So we built a platform that looks at the challenges faced by them
At the same time, our platform understands frauds and works with a company’s compliances and policies to ensure that the filings are
legitimate,” he said.“Every company today could make use of an intelligent expense platform like Fyle
Major giants already subscribe to ERP services that offer similar capabilities as part of their offerings
But as a company or startup grows beyond 50 to 100 people, it becomes tedious to manage expense filings,” he added.Fyle maintains a web
application and a mobile app, and users are free to use them
But the rationale behind introducing integrations with popular services is to make it easier than ever for them to report filings
The startup retains its algorithms each month to improve their scanning abilities
“The idea is to extend expense filing to a service that people already use,” he said.Until late last year, Fyle was serving customers in
Earlier this year, it began searching for clients outside the nation
“Our philosophy was if we are able to sell in India remotely and get people to use the product without any training, we should be able to
replicate this in any part of the world,” he said.And that bet has worked
Fyle has amassed more than 300 clients, more than 250 of which are from outside of India
Today, the startup says it has customers in 17 nations, including the U.S
Furthermore, Fyle’s revenue has grown by five times in the last five months, said Madhusudhan, without disclosing the exact figures.To
accelerate its momentum, the startup is today also launching an enterprise version of Fyle that will serve the needs of major companies
The enterprise version supports a range of additional security features, such as IP restriction and a single sign-in option.Fyle will use
the new capital to develop more product solutions and integrations and expand its footprint in international markets, Madhusudhan said
The startup, which just recently set up its sales and marketing team, will also expand the headcount, he said.Moving forward, Madhusudhan
said the startup would also explore tie-ups with ERP providers and other ways to extend the reach of Fyle.In a statement, Ravi Mehta, MD at
Steadview Capital, said, “intelligent and automated systems will empower businesses to be more efficient in the coming decade
We are excited to partner with Fyle to transform one of the core business processes of expense management through intelligence and
