ClearTax : Click open, file

Past life

Archit Gupta, 29, completed a BTech in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, in 2006, and a master’s from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, in 2008. Though he worked on research related to networks and routers, he always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

After finishing his postgraduation in 2008, Archit spent around two years in Santa Clara, California, working for a disk backup duplication solutions start-up called Data Domain Inc., which was later acquired by EMC Corp. Around this time, a chance conversation with his father, Raja Ram Gupta, a chartered accountant (CA), gave him the idea for ClearTax, an online portal that would make it easy to e-file tax returns; he started working on the idea in 2011. Raja Ram is a partner at the New Delhi-based Rawla & Co., a chartered accountancy firm.

Archit’s friends, Ankit Solanki and Srivatsan Chari, joined the executive team of ClearTax as chief technology officer and vice-president, sales, respectively, in early 2013, bringing with them experience of negotiating the start-up space—both had worked as app developers. Raja Ram is now the adviser to the company.

Eureka moment

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