French startup Indy recently closed a new funding round of $44 million (€40 million) with BlackFin Capital Partners leading the round. Indy started as an automated accounting platform for freelancers and other self-employed people.
But the company is slowly iterating its product to become an all-in-one platform for freelancers, from accounting to company formation, tax preparation, invoicing and (soon) business banking. It’s an interesting example of the positive effects of bundling in a software-as-a-service company. And it could inspire other entrepreneurs who are targeting a highly fragmented market of potential customers.
Since you’re running a company without an employee, Indy wants to provide all the administrative and financial tools you need to run your business. It is designed for freelancers, self-employed, doctors, architects, lawyers, etc.
Other investors in the recent 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 is higher than the company’s valuation after its previous funding round of 35 million euros ($38.3 million at today’s exchange rate).
Image Credits: Indy
Indy’s key feature remains its automated accounting function. When you create an account, you can automatically start syncing your bank account with Indy so that past and future transactions are automatically retrieved.
After that, Indy tries to categorize each transaction automatically. In some cases, users need to indicate the type of transaction in the application. Customers add a receipt to every transaction — VAT is automatically detected and receipts are automatically archived and can be used in the event of a tax audit.
At the end of the year, Indy can pre-fill tax forms and send them directly to the IRS. Similarly, Indy handles VAT returns.
Indy’s accounting tools are free forever. Once you want to create tax forms and file them, you need to pay a monthly subscription. But it remains much cheaper than hiring an accountant.
“As we are on average four to five times cheaper than a CPA for the tax preparation part, there are many people who use our free services who will also sign up for the paid services. But it’s up to them, they can also decide to hire an accountant,” Indy co-founder and CEO Côme Fouques told me.
Product grouping guide
With this simple product placement, Indy managed to get tens of thousands of paid subscribers. But the company hasn’t stood still as it has rolled out other products to turn the Indy into a suite of products.
For example, you can now create quotes and invoices from Indy and save them to your user account. Of course, you can always use Word or Excel for these documents, but there are some advantages to having these documents directly in Indy. For example, when a customer pays an invoice by bank transfer, Indy can automatically mark an invoice as paid.
Likewise, to be able to use a product like Indy, you really need a company to bill customers. In France, even if you are a part-time freelancer looking for additional income, there is some red tape and there are many options.
Startup helps you make the right decisions when building your company. Unlike traditional company formation services, Indy offers this service for free once you start a subscription — but you can cancel that subscription whenever you want.
These products increase the stickiness of the product and users are more likely to recommend Indy to other self-employed people. Similarly, the sales funnel works especially well as a large portion of people who want to become a freelancer should first choose a company creation service.
The next step is clear: Indy is going to become a fintech startup. In just a few months, the startup will offer a free business bank account with a payment card. Once again, it makes sense to bundle this service, as current customers have to switch between their banking app and Indy to check their business finances.
Current companies working in banking businesses such as Short and Shine in France, they are largely focused on small and medium-sized enterprises. They don’t have a basic product offering with basic features that would work well for freelancers. “Business banking for a self-employed person is pretty basic – they want to send money via transfer, receive money via transfer, have a payment card and that’s all there is to it,” Fouques said.
And Indy can then leverage that fintech angle for other services. For example, the company could offer new payment methods for invoices, such as electronic card payments, payments based on QR codes or using the smartphone as a contactless card reader.
“By offering all these features in the same service, we make huge economies of scale and save money on user acquisition costs,” Fouques said. “This means we can offer a whole range of services for free — services that would otherwise be paid services elsewhere. At the same time we have a super-healthy, super-scalable model.”
Some companies have identified the same problem in the US, such as They were found and Lily — both have raised about $80 million according to Crunchbase data. Indy isn’t going to compete head-on with these well-capitalized companies. Instead, the French startup is looking at other European countries to see if it can replicate its service in other markets.
However, Indy is still very focused on its home market, as there are millions of self-employed people in France. The market opportunity is already significant. And it looks like Indy has found the right distribution strategy.
