Get Off Of My Cloud — Accounting Software ClearBooks Raises £300K To Battle It Out With Sage

The online accounting space in the UK is pretty crowded, as multiple cloud players aim to take the throne from the legacy incumbent Sage. These include the likes of KashFlowCrunch, FreeAgent and ClearBooks. The latter announcing today that it has raised £300,000 from WAKR! Holding B.V. (owned by Dutch entrepreneur Tjeerd Kramer), valuing the startup at £6 million. ClearBooks says it will use the new capital to grow the team, along with increasing marketing spend.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch has learned that this comes at a time when ClearBooks is on the verge of announcing a partnership that should see it bring on a significant number of new customers each month. The company currently has close to 5,000 businesses that use its online accounting software, supported by a London-based team of 17.

Furthermore, the company, which was founded in July 2008, claims that the last six months has seen it profitable, based on annual revenue “in excess of half a million pounds”.

In terms of future plans, along with that big client win that we can expect to hear about in the coming weeks, ClearBooks is talking down the likelihood of expanding outside of the UK, though it won’t rule it out completely. Instead, the company is looking to continue to bring the fight to Sage on its home turf, echoing the mantra of competitor KashFlow and others in the space.

“We want to help as many businesses as possible and we won’t rest until we’ve displaced Sage as the UK’s largest accounting software provider”, says founder and Managing Director, Tim Fouracre, in a statement. “Admittedly, we still have a lot of work to do, but our team is up for the challenge”, he says.

Today’s cash injection should help with meeting that challenge.