Stay Cashless, Stay ‘Happay’

Undeniably this is the new age of a virtual world which includes online earthly transactions too. To make this seer journey a happy experience, here's 'Happay' for you.

Demonetization threw the country into a tizzy, impelling it towards a cashless economy. As an aftermath, FinTech startups saw a 10 times increase in use, even extending out into tier 2 and 3 cities.

‘Making digital payments a happy experience’ is the mantra for this Bangalore based FinTech start-up - ‘HAPPAY’ - initiated by IIT-Kharagpur alumni, Varun Rathi and Anshul Rai in 2012. Founded on the premise of offering a totally automated business spends management solution to SMEs, Happay started as a B2C evolved into a B2B platform providing a single centralized platform optimizing reimbursement cycles.

Varun Rathi, a tech-guru who loves to use technology to make lives easier, shares his entrepreneurial journey of five years with Baishali Mukherjee.

The coming together

We both joined jobs after graduating from IIT Kharagpur. Anshul, a Computer Science graduate grabbed the most coveted job at Microsoft Research Lab. He spent around two years at MSR, filing two patents and publishing four papers in International Journals. However, this did not appease his hunger for learning, creating value and making that significant impact in the society. So he decided to quit his job.

I joined the TATA’s in 2010 and soon thought it to be too comfortable. Coming from a business family I was always passionate about entrepreneurship. We re-connected and conceived the idea of Happay, and dreamt of making it the most preferred mode of payment for companies.

Today, Anshul is responsible for driving company’s vision and manages the technology and possible business collaboration. I am responsible for sales, marketing and operations. In simple terms, I sell what Anshul builds.

Innovating a tool to make life easy

From time immemorial, the workflow of the business spends has been sluggish, broken and inefficient across companies resulting in a delay of operations and disheartened employees. Happay forayed into the FinTech space to change the landscape with a first-of-its-kind business spends management solution which takes care of every kind of business spends i.e. Employee adhoc expenses (T&E), Vendor Payments, Operational Expenses and Salary disbursements.

A host of issues plagued the age-old spend management process. The foremost ones being business spending being made in cash, productive time spent by employees in creating expense reports manually, manual inspection of all receipts and spreadsheets, management was clueless about expenses being incurred and were unable to wield control over the same, absence of a single uniform product to suit every industry/size of business and absence of an end-to-end payment integration.

To address this we ideated Happay, a tool to make life really easy. With it, petty cash funds don’t need to be kept in a safe. They could be added to Happay cards as and when required. The employee spends with the Happay cards, takes a picture of the bill and uploads it. It has also provided legitimacy to the transactions in the books. It has helped companies to get in the practice of collecting bills and maintaining them.

The vision to provide payment solution

We are obsessed about creating awesome user experiences and making sure nothing is ever compromised on that front. ‘Happay offers expense management solution for businesses and is a fast growing startup in the Indian payment industry that  helps firms track expenses in real time using a tool that is integrated with mobile-enabled payments platform with set expense limits. The solution essentially consists of a VISA card that could be remote controlled through a mobile app and a web platform. We have got investments from Angel Prime & Prime Venture Partners and the fund infusion last year was close to US$ 0.5 million.

Our core vision is to provide end-to-end payment solution for corporates in simple, fast and secured way. Our platform has been instrumental in automating the age-old system of employee expense management, vendor payments, Opex expenses, salary disbursement and petty cash payments through its unique web and mobile app-enabled interface.

The growth chart

Happay has received more than 15 prestigious awards - from being acclaimed as “Nasscom’s Top 10 startups" to emerging as the "Best prepaid card product" at IAMAI Awards. In a short span of time, we have established a strong foothold in more than 1500 SMEs and Enterprises, across 30 verticals which range from hospitality, education, manufacturing and hyper local to consulting and NGOs. Our clientele have been able to successfully avail of its automated services and are able to manage all their monetary operations seamlessly using data analytics effectively. Happay today, has its presence in all metros and major cities in India.

Do you find the emerging cashless world more convenient? Please share your experience.

For expense management solution, stay ‘Happay’, stay cashless

Demonetization threw the country into a tizzy, impelling it towards a cashless economy. As an aftermath, FinTech startups saw a 10 times increase in use, even extending out into tier 2 and 3 cities.

‘Making digital payments a happy experience’ is the mantra for this Bangalore based FinTech start-up - ‘HAPPAY’ - initiated by IIT-Kharagpur alumni, Varun Rathi and Anshul Rai in 2012. Founded on the premise of offering a totally automated business spends management solution to SMEs, Happay started as a B2C evolved into a B2B platform providing a single centralized platform optimizing reimbursement cycles.

Varun Rathi, a tech-guru who loves to use technology to make lives easier, shares his entrepreneurial journey of five years with Baishali Mukherjee.

The coming together

We both joined jobs after graduating from IIT Kharagpur. Anshul, a Computer Science graduate grabbed the most coveted job at Microsoft Research Lab. He spent around two years at MSR, filing two patents and publishing four papers in International Journals. However, this did not appease his hunger for learning, creating value and making that significant impact in the society. So he decided to quit his job.

I joined the TATA’s in 2010 and soon thought it to be too comfortable. Coming from a business family I was always passionate about entrepreneurship. We re-connected and conceived the idea of Happay, and dreamt of making it the most preferred mode of payment for companies.

Today, Anshul is responsible for driving company’s vision and manages the technology and possible business collaboration. I am responsible for sales, marketing and operations. In simple terms, I sell what Anshul builds.

Innovating a tool to make life easy

From time immemorial, the workflow of the business spends has been sluggish, broken and inefficient across companies resulting in a delay of operations and disheartened employees. Happay forayed into the FinTech space to change the landscape with a first-of-its-kind business spends management solution which takes care of every kind of business spends i.e. Employee adhoc expenses (T&E), Vendor Payments, Operational Expenses and Salary disbursements.

A host of issues plagued the age-old spend management process. The foremost ones being business spending being made in cash, productive time spent by employees in creating expense reports manually, manual inspection of all receipts and spreadsheets, management was clueless about expenses being incurred and were unable to wield control over the same, absence of a single uniform product to suit every industry/size of business and absence of an end-to-end payment integration.

To address this we ideated Happay, a tool to make life really easy. With it, petty cash funds don’t need to be kept in a safe. They could be added to Happay cards as and when required. The employee spends with the Happay cards, takes a picture of the bill and uploads it.                                                                                                    It has also provided legitimacy to the transactions in the books. It has helped companies to get in the practice of collecting bills and maintaining them.

The vision to provide payment solution

We are obsessed about creating awesome user experiences and making sure nothing is ever compromised on that front. ‘Happay offers expense management solution for businesses and is a fast growing startup in the Indian payment industry that  helps firms track expenses in real time using a tool that is integrated with mobile-enabled payments platform with set expense limits. The solution essentially consists of a VISA card that could be remote controlled through a mobile app and a web platform. We have got investments from Angel Prime & Prime Venture Partners and the fund infusion last year was close to US$ 0.5 million.

Our core vision is to provide end-to-end payment solution for corporates in simple, fast and secured way. Our platform has been instrumental in automating the age-old system of employee expense management, vendor payments, Opex expenses, salary disbursement and petty cash payments through its unique web and mobile app-enabled interface.

The growth chart

Happay has received more than 15 prestigious awards - from being acclaimed as “Nasscom’s Top 10 startups" to emerging as the "Best prepaid card product" at IAMAI Awards. In a short span of time, we have established a strong foothold in more than 1500 SMEs and Enterprises, across 30 verticals which range from hospitality, education, manufacturing and hyper local to consulting and NGOs. Our clientele have been able to successfully avail of its automated services and are able to manage all their monetary operations seamlessly using data analytics effectively. Happay today, has its presence in all metros and major cities in India.

Do you find the emerging cashless world more convenient? Please share your experience.

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