FlyFin, an AI-power, SaaS tax platform for self-employed individuals and freelancers, announced its exit from beta and launch of its namesake offering, according to a press release.
The platform combines real CPA expertise and an artificial intelligence-based tax engine to eliminate work required by self-employed individuals. The application is mobile-first and aimed at enabling freelancers and gig workers to handle tax complexities with ease.
“The problem is a very large and dynamic one, and our models have processed hundreds of millions of data points thus far, which is a very significant achievement for our industry,” the company told Venturebeat.
FlyFin’s platform utilizes a number of AI, machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) tools, libraries including TensorFlow, NLTK and Spacy, and cloud services including AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Aside from addressing tax preparation and filing, FlyFin also offers in-depth analysis reports on users expenses and full audit insurance. The company’s CPA team will also review, research and represent users with the IRS from start to finish, according to the release.
“The penny really dropped for me when I realized the entire creator economy, all the youngsters out of college, 50% of Gen Z and millennials, all have some kind of side gig or are independently employed, whether they’re doing an Uber or the white-collar workers being designers and software engineers,” CEO and founder Jaideep Singh told Venturebeat.
“They’ve got some side hustle, and they’re making money. So I realized that you all have to schedule C’s on their 1040s, and that’s a real pain,” he said.
FlyFin is launching with three plans available including basic, standard and premium. Basic includes deduction tracking, with standard adding coverage of all tax filings with a CPA and audit insurance. The premium plan takes this one step further, giving customers a personal CPA and coverage of all entities such as LLCs, S-Corps and K-1s.
The company says it aims to disrupt the $23 billion individual tax preparation market in the U.S. With the pandemic permanently altering business models and remote work becoming more widely adopted, the U.S. market is expected to grow to include 86.5 million self-employed in the next five years.
According to that data, freelancers will comprise 51% of the total U.S. workforce by 2021. 45% of current freelancers include programming, marketing and consulting professionals according to a 2019 Upwork report.
Users can still file taxes on their own, they also have the option to file via FlyFin CPAs, who ensure 100% accurate tax review and preparation. They can also receive this data in an IRS-ready format, through the iOS, Android or desktop app.
In other recent fintech news, Atomic raised a $25 million Series A to build a global investing API infrastructure for wealth creation. Klarna also launched its Pay-in-4 subscription service in the US.