Latest news with #QEDInvestors
Axios
2 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Exclusive: Embedded tax startup April raises $38M
April, an embedded tax platform, has raised $38 million in a Series B round led by QED Investors, founder Ben Borodach tells Axios exclusively. Why it matters: Embedding tax tools directly into financial apps can improve financial decision-making and boost customer retention. Zoom in: Nyca Partners and Team8 also participated in the Series B round, bringing the total funding April has raised to date to $78 million. How it works: Fintech apps and financial institutions use April's APIs to integrate tax filing and planning directly into their platforms, enabling year-round, real-time tax management. April operates on a SaaS-based model, offering flat-rate pricing to fintech partners, who can choose to mark up services for their end customers. "Our vision is to embed tax in every financial decision," Borodach says. "Taxes should be happening where you're managing your money. They should be happening in real time, and they should be personalized to you." Context: New York-based April operates in a market dominated by legacy tax-preparation giants like Intuit, H&R Block, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer. But it recently became the first new company in 15 years to achieve national e-file coverage in all 50 states, Borodach says. The company has also launched a series of new products over the past year, including pro-assisted and pro-led tax filing, quarterly estimate tools for small business owners, and paycheck withholding optimizers. As a result, it is seeing increased demand from wealth management platforms, including integrations with digital advisers catering to mass-affluent clients and an upcoming partnership with a trillion-dollar asset manager. By the numbers: April claims it can reduce the time it takes to prepare and file taxes from the IRS' reported 13‑hour average down to just 22 minutes. The company processed hundreds of thousands of returns through partnerships with over 50 fintech apps and financial institutions this past tax season. It has seen its business grow three times year-to-date and more than seven times over the past 12 months, Borodach says. What's next: The company is preparing to launch advanced tax planning tools around capital gains, retirement planning, and stock transactions.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
AI-powered tax platform april raises $38m Series B funding
US-based april, an embedded AI tax platform, has closed a $38m Series B funding round led by QED Investors, with participation from Nyca Partners and Team8. This brings the tax solutions vendor's total funding to $78m. april said it will use the funding to offer advanced tax software to help millions of Americans forecast, optimise, and file taxes through major financial platforms. The company has introduced tools for paycheck withholding optimisation and quarterly payments. It is actively developing solutions for complex scenarios such as capital gains, retirement planning, and small business ownership. These areas represent the next frontier in embedded tax, addressing scenarios that many financial platforms struggle to handle, the company said. april president and COO Raj Doshi said: 'For too long, tax has been disconnected from clients' primary financial relationships. april's technology enables our partners to incorporate tax planning and filing as part of their broader offering to deliver truly holistic solutions. 'It puts them front and center in one of the most important, complex dynamics of Americans' financial lives, and allows them to proactively surface opportunities and insights to help clients make the best possible decisions for their futures.' According to april, its recent funding follows key milestones, including becoming the first new company in over 15 years to achieve national e-file coverage in early 2025. During the 2024 tax season, april was accessible to 'millions of Americans' through over 50 partners, processing 'hundreds of thousands' of tax returns. The company claims to have tripled in size this year, reflecting the growing demand for embedded tax solutions within financial institutions. In this tax season, there was an expansion of april's filing capabilities. In addition to its self-service offering, april launched pro-assisted and pro-led tax filing services, enabling partners to address a wider range of tax needs within their platforms. april's AI-powered tax infrastructure integrates federal and state filing into a single flow, utilising partner data to pre-fill forms. QED Investors principal Adams Conrad said: 'april has demonstrated strong execution in a historically complex space. It is rare to see a company with the potential to reshape how millions of Americans interact with the tax system, while also powering the next generation of fintech and financial services innovation. 'As april succeeds in helping more people achieve net-neutral tax outcomes, the downstream effect is profound—not just for individuals, but for the broader economy.' "AI-powered tax platform april raises $38m Series B funding " was originally created and published by International Accounting Bulletin, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Payabli secures $28m in Series B funding
Payabli, a payments infrastructure platform serving software firms, has raised $28m in its Series B financing round. This round was led by Fika Ventures and QED Investors, with additional contribution from current investors TTV Capital and Bling Capital. It comes nine months after the company's Series A, bringing the total capital raised to $60m. With the fresh infusion, Payabli plans to continue product development and expand its 3P offering, including Pay In, Pay Out, and Pay Ops capabilities. The company has launched an embedded Spend Management solution, offering branded expense programs with physical and virtual cards, giving platforms full API control and the ability to capture interchange revenue. The company states the recent funding will enable Payabli, headquartered in Florida, to grow its team further. Fika Ventures managing partner TX Zhuo said: 'We've believed in Payabli's vision since day one and have seen Jo and Will consistently exceed expectations as they build the future of embedded payments. Their ability to deliver a full stack, developer first platform that wins in complex, need-to-pay verticals is unmatched.' QED Investors Partner Laura Bock said: 'We initially backed Payabli because we believe deeply in Jo and Will's approach to embedded payments—and they've executed relentlessly. They've built the right platform at exactly the right time, as software platforms become the next major players in payments. With a full-stack offering, rapid product velocity, and strong traction in complex verticals, Payabli has emerged as a category leader. We're excited to double down and support their next phase of growth as they redefine modern payments infrastructure.' The Series B funding builds on Payabli's growth over the past year, highlighted by a sevenfold increase in revenue and the activation of multiple billions in live processing volume, the company release stated. The platform now has over 50,000 merchants and has introduced embedded payments for enterprises in essential payment verticals, alongside multiple new integrations and partnerships. The company aims to enhance its product development with the new funding, focusing on AI-powered features to provide customised customer experiences. Payabli is harnessing the power of AI to streamline operations and enhance customer experiences. The company's first AI-driven support agent, Amigo, is stated to assist software companies with integration, support, and analytics through a chat-based interface. Payabli is also building 'advanced' risk and fraud detection models, leveraging NVIDIA's AI infrastructure to provide tailored risk assessments. "Payabli secures $28m in Series B funding" was originally created and published by Electronic Payments International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
Finextra
18-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Payabli raises $28M Series B
Embedded payments platform Payabli has closed on a $28 million Series B funding round. 0 The new funding comes just nine months after Payabli raised its Series A led by QED Investors bringing the total capital in the company to date to $60,000,000. The Series B is led by Fika Ventures and QED Investors with participation from existing investors TTV Capital and Bling Capital. California-based Payabli provides a single unified API to allow software developers to create any payment experience they need for acceptance and issuance of money, as well as operational tools to manage the tactical needs of a payments company. This includes vertical-specific capabilities that lend themselves to certain 'Need-to-Pay' businesses, like property management, utilities, education, and government. Over the past year, the company has posted a 7x year-over-year increase in revenue and surpassed 50,000 merchants on its platform. Joseph Elias Phillips, co-founder and Co-CEO of Payabl, says the new funding will be directed to product development, with a focus on AI-driven features. 'We're fortunate to be experiencing rapid growth at a time when AI is poised to revolutionize the financial services industry," he says. "When our investors approached us about doubling down on Payabli, we saw a clear opportunity to go on the offensive by accelerating AI enablement across our platform and organization to drive further growth and bring groundbreaking new products and capabilities to market faster.' Payabli recently launched Amigo, its first AI-powered support agent, now available through the company's technical documentation, web platform, and natively within Slack. Amigo delivers a wide range of functionality, from acting as a solution engineer that helps software companies integrate faster, to serving as a support representative that resolves tickets quickly, to functioning as a business analyst that assists software partners with reporting and analytics through a user-friendly, chat-based interface. In parallel, Payabli is working with Nvidia to develop advanced risk and fraud detection models trained on proprietary customer data to deliver tailored risk assessments specific to each customer's business and industry.
Indian Express
03-06-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Unsecured loans seen key to meeting retail credit demand in India
Unsecured loans given by fintech firms will be instrumental in meeting demand for retail credit in India over the coming years, with the absence of collateral for many households that are in the 'early stages of the asset formation cycle' making it unlikely that secured loans will be able to completely fulfill the rising demand. 'Today, only 65 per cent of India's personal bank credit is secured, compared to 90 per cent in the US. Fortunately, India's robust credit bureau data ecosystem has enabled unsecured lending to thrive in recent years,' Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and QED Investors said in their Global Fintech Report 2025, released Monday. As per the report, Indians' demand for consumer loans is rising rapidly due to robust economic growth – India's GDP expanded by a faster-than-expected 7.4 per cent in the final quarter of 2024-25 – and 'changing cultural attitudes toward debt'. Demand for loans from the middle class is also expected to rise in tandem with the segment itself, which is projected to make up 40 per cent of the population by 2031 from 31 per cent at present, the report said. This is already reflected in data – according to credit information company TransUnion CIBIL, 61 per cent of fintech customers were less than 30 years of age compared to 36 per cent for the rest of the industry. To be sure, growth in unsecured loans has slowed appreciably in the last couple of years following tightening of regulations by the Reserve Bank of India. As on April 18, while overall bank credit was up 10.3 per cent year-on-year, credit card outstanding and the 'other personal loans' category – both of the unsecured variety – were 10.6 per cent and 9.0 per cent higher, respectively. These figures are sharply lower than where they were before the RBI took action on November 16, 2023 to dampen what it termed as 'very high growth' in certain segments: as on November 17, 2023, banks' credit card outstanding was 34.2 per cent higher and 'other personal loans' were up 24.3 per cent. Amid the tightened regulatory norms that asked lenders to set aside greater capital than before for consumer loans, excluding certain types such as housing and education, among others, Indian fintechs have continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace. In terms of live unique customers, fintech firms saw a growth of 40 per cent in 2023 and 15 per cent in 2024 compared to 16 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively, for the industry, TransUnion CIBIL data showed. These firms are particularly dominant when it comes to small loans and were responsible for nearly nine out of every 10 loans of less than Rs 50,000 that were made in October-December 2024. While BCG and QED Investors said in their report that 'demand for unsecured credit remains' in India, the latest quarterly results for some of the country's most prominent players in the space are not encouraging. In the quarter ended March 2025, Paytm distributed personal loans to the tune of Rs 1,422 crore, down 19 per cent from October-December 2024, as its lending partners tightened risk policies. 'Personal credit, unless something bigger changes, we will not see much larger growth,' Founder and Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma said in a post-earnings analyst call on May 6, 2025. Paytm is not alone, with Mobikwik posting a 41 per cent fall in digital lending disbursals in FY25 after it discontinued its Zip buy-now-pay-later product in December 2024 'due to low lender appetite'. According to BCG and QED Investors' report, lending 'remains a significant opportunity' for fintechs as they only account for around 3 per cent of global lending revenues of $2 trillion. And if unsecured personal loans are excluded, the penetration by fintechs is less than 1 per cent, with banks at an advantage due to the access they have to low-cost funds in the form of deposits. '…very few fintech lenders have truly weathered a complete credit cycle; in that sense, the industry is still untested,' the report said.
