Israeli fintech company Blue dot raises $32 million led by Ibex Investors

Fintech company Blue dot, which has developed an AI-driven, cloud-based tax compliance platform, has raised $32 million in a round led by Ibex Investors and with the participation of Lutetia Technology Partners. Existing investors Lamaison Partners, Viola and Target Global also participated in the round. Blue dot announced last week the change of its name from VATBox.

The company said that the latest funding will be used to accelerate its growth in Europe and the U.S. with the expansion of the product and R&D teams. Among Blue dot's clients are corporations of the likes of Amazon, Dell, Cisco, GSK, Vestas and Michelin. The company has raised $96 million to date, with the latest round only including the acquisition of equity.

Blue dot employs around 100 people, 70 of them in Israel, and has offices in Herzliya, London, Amsterdam, France and the U.S. Blue dot's end-to-end solution is used by companies to identify and calculate any qualified, eligible and recoverable VAT spend, while at the same time analyzing this same spend for taxable employee benefits purposes and corporate income tax deductibility. Blue dot ensures compliance across multiple jurisdictions,

"Blue dot was founded in 2013 and its vision is to truly revolutionize the way in which organizations manage their financial transactions," said Blue dot CEO Isaac Saft. "The announcement on the completion of the round and the branding change has come on the back of several significant milestones, beginning with the demand from the market to expand our tech beyond VAT challenges and use our capabilities to solve greater problems. We have also signed a strategic agreement with SAP Concur, an organization which provides a system for managing employee expenses for over 50,000 companies worldwide. Our solution is being sold by SAP Concur as its official solution for the challenge of data and tax assurance."

Gal Gitter, Managing Director of Ibex Investors, who will be joining Blue dot's board of directors, added: “We believe that Blue dot will change the way in which organisations across the world manage their business with the tax authorities and ensure they receive the returns they are entitled to. The more decentralized the purchasing process in an organization becomes, the more organizations will be seeking ways in which to substitute the complex and manual tax reporting methods with automated solutions."