Cleartax acquires Dose FM, absorbs its team

Industry:    2019-10-18

Online tax returns filing platform Cleartax has acquired Dose FM, an early-stage audio streaming platform for an undisclosed amount.

The four member team of Dose FM will now work with the Cleartax team to create an engagement platform for their business customers to file their GST (goods and services tax) returns.

“They were a four member team who will now join Cleartax. While their core product was in a separate domain, we will leverage the team’s technology know how on developing a recommendation engine, local language capabilities, and few others,” said Archit Gupta, chief executive officer of Cleartax.

Gupta did not disclose the financial terms of the deal but said ESOP (employee stock options), grants and cash was offered in the process.

Y Combinator-backed Cleartax is in a stage of transitioning from a largely desktop platform to the smartphone. It is investing heavily to meet the needs of small and medium businesses which are entering into the formal economy through GST.

“We are getting huge demand from smaller cities and towns, where we will use the learnings of the Dose FM team to build capabilities on the smartphone. They have worked very closely in those areas and have a strong understanding of their customer base,” said Gupta.

Dose FM, founded in 2018 by Abhishek Damodara, Akhil Appanna, and Rishabh Harit, lets users create and share audio clips. It offers a live audio creation tool for creators to interact with listeners and cohost shows with friends. It had received funding from a syndicate of AngelList investors.
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