HiPajak Announces Initial Funding from 1982 Ventures

Startup developer of virtual assistant platform for taxation HiPajak announces that it has secured seed funding from 1982 ventures, a venture capitalist company from Singapore that focuses on startups fintech in South East Asia. The fresh funds, whose value is not stated, will be focused on by the company for product development, so as to make taxation activities easier for users.

Since its establishment in early 2020, HiTax claimed to have experienced significant growth. From the statistics submitted, now they have embraced more than 150 thousand users and 70 thousand MSMEs in various regions in Indonesia. Interestingly, the trend of HiPajak users shows a 100-fold increase in growth in the 18-24 year age range.

"Since its launch, HiPajak has always been committed to providing the right solution for tax matters, especially for people who have unconventional professions or freelancers, as well as for the MSME segment. HiPajak is here to simplify various steps related to income tax that can save costs up to 95%. Only by easy chatting, everyone can easily access HiPajak services, even for people who are unfamiliar with tax or accounting," explained HiPajak Founder & CEO Tracy Tardia.

Tighten the collaboration strategy

To boost traction growth, HiPajak has intensified a collaboration strategy with various large user-based application ecosystems. One of them together Gojek, strategic cooperation is carried out via GoBiz . unit – HiPajak acts as tax aggregator apps in helping approximately one million partners or merchant GoFood. In addition, there are a number of other partners such as LinkAja, Midtrans, and KoinWorks.

HiPajak services are not only focused on managing the taxation process, they also provide access to tax literacy. Apart from using the application, HiPajak regularly organizes tax education programs for students as well as conducts socialization and workshops for MSMEs.

The HiPajak application is equipped with 5 main features consisting of Tax Recommendations, Record & Calculate Taxes, Pay Taxes, Report Taxes, Tax Consultations (Tax Confessions), and Making NPWP. For the security of user privacy data, they use a layered and tested protection system. Currently they are also supervised and connected directly with the Directorate General of Taxes. Meanwhile, in receiving user funds, HiPajak has collaborated with BNI.

"With rapid technological advances, we are continuously motivated to innovate and develop various features available in HiPajak so that it can be made easier for the community and eliminate the impression that managing taxes is difficult. Simplifying tax services for the community will continue to be our top priority. HiPajak will also continue its contribution in supporting the government to improve the performance of tax revenues which are a source of state revenue and help accelerate national development," added Tracy.

Digital tax service

Regarding the digitization of tax services, a number of startups in Indonesia have introduced innovations – both targeting individuals and businesses. One of the biggest is OnlinePajak, at the end of 2021 they were collecting series C funding involving Visa, Tencent, and a number of other investors. It is estimated that, with the acquisition of this investment, OnlinePajak's valuation has reached $184 million or around 2,6 trillion Rupiah.

Present as a SaaS service for businesses, OnlinePajak currently provides several services that are packaged in three main product categories: Invoice, Payroll, and Others. In the Invoice sub-service, there are various features such as calculating/depositing/reporting VAT and PPh, making withholding books, invoices, NPWP validation, and others. They also provide APIs that can be integrated with application services owned by a company.

Another player is Tax.io, mid last year they also launched a service chatbot named "Bee-Jak" to make it easier for MSME actors to report and pay their taxes. This approach is similar to that of HiPajak. Meanwhile, there are several other platforms that also have tax services with their own unique concepts, starting from KlikPajak, Taxku, MitraBijak, Mekari, and others.

Based on research results from Fortune Business Insight, digital tax services or software that helps tax management have been reached $5,24 billion in 2018, is projected to increase by $11,19 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 10,4%. The MSME segment is one of the attractive targets, considering that at this level usually businesses still do not have a special team dedicated to managing taxes.