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Wevat
App helping travellers get tax back on shopping
- 1-20 employees
- Fintech
- B2C
- Travel
- Personal finance
- Voltaire - Saint Amour, Lyon, France
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Company mission
To make it simple for travellers to get a VAT refund on shopping in France.
Our take
Claiming VAT tax refunds for travellers in the EU has historically involved laborious paperwork. But with consumers becoming more accustomed to mobile payments, the digitisation of other paper-based financial processes is following suit. Wevat is an app doing just that, helping shoppers in France process VAT tax refunds faster and more efficiently.
They have already helped shoppers get VAT refunds on purchases worth over 18 million euros, and have seamless integration with top mobile payment apps Alipay and WeChat Pay, suggesting they are focusing their operations on the Chinese market. Chinese tourists were the biggest spenders in France some time ago, but reports suggest tourism from this country has dropped over the pandemic. So it will be interesting to see how, or if, this affects Wevat’s business.
It is still a fairly niche market overall, with Zapptax offering the same service in France, and Refundit and Wooniver covering Belgium and Spain. As the paperless VAT refund market develops, and travel begins to open up again in Europe, Wevat is certainly operating in a future-focused market with a mobile-first solution that’s on the up.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Benefits
- We have in-office days once a week for London team members (or budget for co-working spaces if you’re elsewhere)
- Flexible working environment. We care mostly about results!
- The whole team is working fully remotely, so no hybrid remote/in office meetings
- Working in a dynamic and fast-growing tech startup
- A friendly, multi-cultural and ambitious team
- 28 days of holiday + a “no working on your birthday” policy!
- A monthly wellness budget that you can spend on all things to keep you happy and healthy
- A generous salary/stock option package
Funding (2 rounds)
Mar 2020
$1m
CONVERTIBLE
Jan 2017
$0.4m
ANGEL
Total funding: $1.3m
This company has top investors
Leadership
Raphael Chow
(CEO)Previously a strategy consultant at Deloitte, he was named on the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 List.
Patrick McClurg
(CTO)Previously a Software Engineer at NYSE Euronext, then a Technology Consulting Analyst at Deloitte Digital, and a Senior Java Engineer at Citi. Prior to co-founding WeVat he worked as a contract Java Developer at Sky.
