Accounting software giant Intuit would seem to have two distinct focuses right now. Firstly it is seeking a massive expansion into developing nations - in particular Brazil and India. Secondly, on its home turf of the US it has New Zealand-based upstart Xero nipping at its heels with a self-confessed intention to disrupt the bigger player. After a lackluster start,
It is the first aim however, that of expanding its developing market footprint, that today saw Intuit acquire ZeroPaper, a Brazilian startup offering cloud-based accounting services. ZeroPaper's primary product is around Small and Mid-sized Business (SMB) money management tools and the company claims 450,000 customers using its software - a good number considering they're only in one market and only launched in 2012. It's also an impressive number given that ZeroPaper only raised the relatively tiny sum of $200,000. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
After the deal, ZeroPaper is looking to migrate its customers onto regular Intuit products such as QuickBooks. Although an Intuit spokesperson said that ZeroPaper will continue to sell its existing software. Going forwards, Intuit is intending to localize QuickBooks for the Brazilian market
Brazil is a massive opportunity for Intuit - it is, after all, the seventh largest economy in the world and has a mind-boggling number of small businesses. Around 16 million entities in Brazil loosely fall into the size that makes them good candidates for Intuit products - even converting 10% of those entities would give Intuit a huge global boost (and, as an aside, give it some more fuel to fight off competitors).
The next big challenge for Intuit is India - CEO Brad Smith told me in a conversation that he sees real opportunity from India's billion or so citizens. The massive increase in internet connectivity in India, and that country's move directly to mobile internet, provides another interesting opportunity for the company.
