Bengaluru-based ClearTax fires 16% of staff, freshers hit hardest: Report

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Clear, formerly ClearTax, has fired at least 16 percent of its workforce in a fresh round of job cuts that took effect on August 1, with freshers and recent campus hires hit the hardest.

The actual number could be higher, around 20-25 percent of the total workforce, affecting around 145 employees, sources cited by Entrackr said.

Dozens of affected employees, many of whom joined in June after Day 1 campus placements, have taken to social media to share their distress.

“This decision felt profoundly unfair,” wrote Anoop Singh, an IIT-Guwahati graduate who joined Clear as a software engineer just two months ago. “To have this opportunity revoked before I even had a real chance to prove my long-term value — feels profoundly unfair.”
Others echoed similar sentiments.

“All newly onboarded freshers were affected as part of broader business decisions,” said Soojal Singh, another recent hire from IIT-BHU.

“The news was unexpected and disheartening… I wasn’t allowed to sit for other companies because I had accepted Clear’s offer on Day 1 of campus placements,” an IIT-Kanpur graduate said in a widely circulated post.

Several of these engineers said they had joined the company with hope, having turned down other campus offers, only to be laid off within weeks, some during their probation period, before receiving their first appraisal cycles or project evaluations.

Clear attributed the move to an organisational restructuring exercise. “We recently undertook a broader strategic organisational restructuring, impacting around 16 percent of our workforce, including a small number of early-career employees,” a Clear spokesperson said.

“To support them, we have extended enhanced severance packages, continued health insurance, and active outplacement assistance through outreach to industry partners.”

Apart from those who were onboarded in June, some interns who had received full-time offers have had them revoked, according to LinkedIn posts. Harshit Swarnkar, another ex-Software Development Engineer at Clear, wrote that his offer was rescinded, owing to “difficult business decisions.”

“While the news was unexpected and disappointing, I see it as a brief pause — not the end of the journey,” wrote Manvendra Singh Holkar, another recent IIT- BHU hire.

Revenue up but funding pipeline dry

The layoffs come amid Clear's improving financial performance but limited capital inflow.

The Bengaluru-based firm's revenue nearly doubled in FY24, with operating revenue rising 93 percent to Rs 209.84 crore from FY23. Losses narrowed nearly 59 percent at Rs 96.24 crore.

However, the company has not raised fresh funding since its October 2021 Series C round.

According to startup data tracker TheKredible, Clear has raised $140 million, so far, from investors. The company was incubated in Y Combinator and is funded by Silicon Valley investors including PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Max Levchin, and Scott Banister.

Other investor include Composite Capital, Sequoia Capital, and SAIF Partners, Stripe, Kora Capital, Think Investments, Elevation Capital.

Clear, once known primarily for helping individuals e-file taxes, offers a suite of services across finance cloud, compliance cloud, and supply chain cloud, helping businesses manage invoicing, AP automation, and tax compliance.