Interesting to read that ClearBooks , the UK based privately held online accounting application, has just secured a new financing deal for an undisclosed sum. Their press release announcing the deal is a marketing message – calling out Sage and Intuit, and specifically pitching itself as a “more UK focused service than online international competitors Xero Limited.”

No mention of the other UK players like Free Agent Central or KashFlow.

Further spin comes in the following:

Clear Books is a rapidly growing company with customer numbers increasing more than 20% per month. It is quickly establishing itself as a leader in the growing SaaS online accounting software market in the UK. Managing Director, Tim Fouracre, said, “Our cash flows continue to reflect impressive growth month on month, but this additional financing will help us accelerate our expansion plans. One of our key objectives is to add depth to our development team to ensure we continue to develop the very best application. Our aim is to make both maintaining company accounts and doing the bookkeeping as easy as possible for small businesses. We are already making great progress on this front with our online VAT filing direct to HMRC and our new payroll module”.

As I said, with no mention of the amount raised this is little more than a marketing release – that said it’s interesting to see ClearBooks so obviously throw some punches Xero’s way. Interesting also given the recent prediction of QuickBooks’ return to the UK