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Tag: khatabook

  • Khatabook Business Model | How Khatabook Makes Money

    Khatabook is a prime fintech platform for small and medium businesses (SMBs) that provides a digital ledger application to facilitate financial management. It operates on the freemium model, providing free features for basic bookkeeping applications while deriving revenue through premium features and various value-added services. The platform allows users to digitally record credit or debit transactions, replacing conventional and time-consuming paper ledger lies. Its customer management features include automated payment reminders sent through SMS or WhatsApp and easy payment collection through UPI and QR codes. Besides, business performance monitoring is made easier with an analytical overview of insights from the platform. 

    Khatabook became a success in solving real problems by digitizing manual transaction tracking, thereby translating into accuracy and efficiency for SMBs. Khatabook’s freemium model encourages many downloads, out of which many end customers will convert to paid service subscribers over time. It is purposely designed for a user-friendly experience, and among its functionalities, different regional languages enhance this app’s ease of navigability. Khatabook aims to engage customers and earn lifelong loyalty while bundling financial services into an ecosystem.

    Khatabook Business Model
    How Khatabook Makes Money I Revenue Model of Khatabook
    Khatabook Unique Selling Proposition
    Khatabook SWOT Analysis

    About Khatabook

    Khatabook, which emerged in 2018 from Ravish Naresh, and his team directly pertains to the digitization of the traditional bookkeeping processes engaged in by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within that country. This concept originated from the founders’ former company that was Kyte.ai a digital spend management application based in 2016. While Kyte was initially catching on, it could not scale, as it was targeting metropolitan users, who were primarily using digital methods of payment. So, after observing that most new Internet users in smaller towns worked in cash and old-style kata (ledger books), the complete team pivoted to create Khatabook.

    The earliest version of Khatabook was rolled out in January 2019 as a product with features like lists of customers and transactions, SMS integration, and automatic payment reminders. SMEs found the app useful from the first day of its introduction, stating that it removed manual errors, created real-time transaction visibility, and simplified cash-flow management. By November 2019, Khatabook recorded over $5 billion in cash transactions and had raised $25 million through Series A funding.

    Khatabook has had an extremely fast growth trajectory ever since its launch, catering to millions of people around the length and expanse of India with services such as inventory management, digital payments, and business analytics because of the strategic merging it did with Biz Analyst in 2021. Today, it is one of the top fintech platforms for SMEs in India.

    Khatabook – Reducing the Burden of Accounting
    Khatabook is the world’s fastest-growing SaaS company. Read to know more about Khatabook founder, how it started, business model, revenue & more.
    StartupTalkyAnik Banerjee

    Khatabook Business Model

    Khatabook works on a freemium business model catering to small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India. It was developed as a pure-play digital ledger app and allows merchants to go paperless. The app records credits and debits, keeps track of customer balances, plans SMS and WhatsApp transaction reminders, and comes integrated with digital payment mediums like UPI and QR-based payments. The platform generates revenues through transaction fees. The possible use by businesses is that it is data-driven insights and actual performance management analytics that businesses could use to study whether their firm is performing at par or better compared to a previous time.

    Khatabook is none other than its easy and free-framed service strategy, a complete ecosystem. Even the translations of the application into several languages made it usable across various regions. While free core functionalities are maintained, premium subscriptions provide advanced features such as analytics and inventory management for a continuous revenue pipeline. Khatabook offers standalone end-to-end integration of multiple financial solutions by integrating its application as a one-stop solution to improve business access efficiency, enhance customer loyalty, and strengthen its stance in India’s fintech space.

    How Khatabook Makes Money I Revenue Model of Khatabook

    Khatabook requires a freemium business model and therefore the free important financial management tools but earning from numerous other income streams. Premium subscription plans provide advanced features like detailed analytics, multi-device access, and inventory management for businesses requiring these extended capabilities. In addition, it earns transaction fees from digital payments through UPI, QR Codes, and other gateways. Khatabook is also into lending as it offers business loans and working capital financing of small businesses, earning them from the interests and commissions charged by their financial partners. 

    Beyond these core service offerings, Khatabook monetizes its platform further by diversifying into cross-selling such financial products as insurance and investment, earning commission sales. This will allow it to provide advertising on its platform for brands that want to target consumers within its user base. Premium customer support as a value-added feature, API-added integration, and other benefits result in monetization as well. By availing themselves of free services, Khatabook keeps an effective way of attracting SMBs with very lucrative paysite channels that build their strength in India’s competitive fintech ecosystem.

    The company has significantly grown over the years in terms of revenue from operations. For FY24, it reported INR 102.70 crore compared to INR 80.88 crore in FY23. An additional surge above that year was seen in FY22, where revenue totaled INR 71.1 crore, raising it four times from INR 16.9 crore in FY21.

    Khatabook Unique Selling Proposition

    Khatabook has a unique selling proposition that can simplify financial management for small and medium businesses in India via a highly friendly digital ledger that can replace traditional bookkeeping. Moreover, it is multilingual for different people using it as well as automated in payment reminders, invoice creation, etc., so that SMBs can improve their cash flow management. In addition, apart from cash accounting, the app helps customers manage accounts, analytics, and online stores (‘MyStore’) to transform businesses into the next possible e-commerce location.

    It also builds a trust-based platform for them to share experiences, enhancing site-customer engagement and customer loyalty. The most pertinent differentiator from other offerings that Khatabook brings is a proposition tuned in to the peculiar challenges the most common type of user: micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that conduct cash transactions and do not have access to banking facilities would face in operationalization to financial management. All this makes Khatabook a beneficial solution that combines intuitive technology and automation with localized support to become the preferred financial management tool for small businesses wishing to transform or grow.

    Khatabook SWOT Analysis

    Khatabook SWOT Analysis
    Khatabook SWOT Analysis

    Strengths

    • Strong Brand Recognition: Khatabook is very popularly recognized among small business owners with an 89% recall and a trusted name in the Indian fintech.
    • Usability: The application blocks easy access to even the non-techie world because its rating speaks pretty high- 4.8/5 at the Google Play Store.
    • Full-Featured Solution: Transaction tracking, payment reminders, analysis, and much more which culminates in value addition for the users.
    • Most affordable solution: Basic services are free with economic premium packs (1,500/month, starting) which cost less than traditional bookkeeping.
    • The App Reaches the Mark: More than 10 million downloads and constructing more around the user in India.
    • Continuous Updates: Enhancements to the same feature based on user feedback make the feature more appropriate and keep the user.

    Weaknesses

    • Limited International Presence: Operations are primarily focused on India while neglecting the global markets.
    • Smartphone Dependency: This bias toward mobile technology leaves out people who don’t own a smartphone since the smartphone penetration in India is only 54%.
    • Issues of Data Privacy: Unrestricted access to any sensitive financial data involves the possibility of them being influenced by tighter rules-for instance: India’s Personal Data Protection Bill.
    • Very High Competition: It is also competing against other larger providers like Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay that have greater manpower and market penetration.
    • Scalability Challenge: High growth rates maintained in the past may well gas out with the very requirement of continuous innovation in keeping with the changing dynamics of user requirements and the market itself.

    Opportunities

    • Geographic Expansion: Underserved areas, particularly rural India and international regions, present forations for significant growth.
    • AI Integration: AI and machine learning can be utilized for personalized services that improve customer experience and operational efficiency.
    • Strategic Partnerships: Partnerships with fintech companies or financial institutions may serve to diversify products and services and enter new markets.
    • Post-Pandemic Digital Adoption: SMBs increased their reliance on digital solutions post-pandemic, which opens further adoption opportunities for Khatabook services.
    • Service Diversification: Opportunities to branch into loans, invoicing, and other financial tools to become a one-stop solution for SMBs.

    Threats

    • Cybersecurity Risks: Threats of data breaches can disturb user trust and lead to financial penalties averaging $200,000 per breach.
    • Market Saturation: Increasing competition in the digital ledger space may reduce user engagement with flooding participation of new entrants.
    • Regulatory Compliance Issues: Increasing data privacy laws could entail increased operational costs and challenges in meeting compliance.
    • Economic Turn Down: Even small businesses which influence the sale of Khatabook products could reduce their expenditure in times of economic challenges, affecting growth in revenue.

    Conclusion

    Khatabook, with its fascinating and highly user-friendly digital ledger application, has emerged as a major fintech solution provider for small- and medium-sized enterprises in India. Its value proposition amalgamation of simplicity, multi-language support, and overall financial management tools- is distinctively positioned within an already highly competitive domain. Because of these strengths, such as brand recognition and already very satisfied users, the company has established a foundation on which it continues to grow.

    However, some of the challenges Khatabook has to deal with are competitive intensity, data privacy, and the ability to scale up. Khatabook will need to use all its capabilities of geographic expansion-availing resources of new-age technology, such as AI, and diversifying the service portfolio to further strengthen its presence in the market and develop ways for the organization to be sustainable.

    FAQs

    What is Khatabook?

    Khatabook is a mobile app designed to help small businesses digitally manage their ledgers and transactions.  

    What problem does Khatabook solve?

    It simplifies bookkeeping for small businesses, replacing traditional paper ledgers with a digital platform.  

    Is Khatabook free for users?

    The core bookkeeping features of Khatabook are generally free for small business owners.

  • Khatabook- How it is Reducing the Burden of Accounting?

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

    In our haphazard daily life, we tend to get busy with several things and forget about payments and maintaining a log of all the financial transactions. This, sometimes, becomes extremely hectic and might even affect businesses adversely in a whole host of ways. However, with the emergence of numerous business management software, businesses and individuals can manage their businesses effortlessly. Khatabook is one of such reliable software solutions that makes managing business and personal ledgers a breeze!

    Founded in 2018 in Bangalore, Khatabook is hailed as India’s fastest-growing SaaS company. Khatabook reminds you through WhatsApp or SMS when the money is due to be paid or collected. forgetting the due dates of payments to be made. Besides, handling multiple businesses will no more be a deal with Khatabook!  

    The micro, small and medium businesses of the country simply has a new name, Khatabook, which brings safe and secure business and financial solutions to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

    Here’s diving into Khatabook’s journey in this StartupTalky article, where we will find out more about Khatabook Founders and Team, Funding and Investors, Startup Story, Tagline and Logo, Growth, Business and Revenue Model, Challenges, Competitors, Future Plans and more.  

    Khatabook empowering MSMEs to go digital.
    Khatabook empowering MSMEs to go digital.

    Khatabook – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Khatabook
    Headquarters Bangalore, Karnataka, India
    Founders Ashish Sonone, Dhanesh Kumar, Vaibhav Kalpe, Jaideep
    Sector Fintech
    Founded January 2019
    CEO Ravish Naresh
    Area Served India
    Valuation $600 Mn+
    Website www.khatabook.com
    Parent Company Kyte Technologies

    Khatabook – Latest News
    Khatabook – About and How it Works?
    Khatabook – Founders and Team
    Khatabook – Startup Story
    Khatabook – Mission and Vision
    Khatabook – Tagline and Logo
    Khatabook – Business Model
    Khatabook – Revenue Model
    Khatabook – Growth
    Khatabook – Acquisitions
    Khatabook – Awards and Achievements
    Khatabook – Partnerships
    Khatabook – Challenges Faced
    Khatabook – Funding and Investors
    Khatabook – Competitors
    Khatabook – LayOff
    Khatabook – Future Plans
    Khatabook – FAQs

    The latest campaign of Khatabook #DhandeKaDoctor featuring MS Dhoni, urging small businesses to use Khatabook to maintain their account.

    Khatabook – Latest News

    9th November 2021 – Khatabook has decided to shut down MyStore, the eCommerce enablement of the company, which has been a core product of the company, effective from 15th November onwards.

    24th August 2021 – Khatabook concluded its Series C round of funding with a fundraise of $100 million led by Tribe Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Alkeon Capital, B Capital Group, Sequoia Capital, and more.

    3rd February 2021 – Khatabook released its 2020 statistics. In 2020, Khatabook activated merchants in >95% Indian districts, recording over $100Bn+ in transactions with over 150Mn+ customers.

    13th January 2021 – Out of the 7 Indian startups in Y Combinator‘s latest top companies’ list, Khatabook is one among them. India has emerged as an important market for Y Combinator.

    Khatabook – About and How it Works?

    Founded in January 2019, Khatabook is the fastest growing Saas company in India and one of the fastest-growing SaaS company in the world. It has become India’s leading business management app for MSMEs with 20M+ downloads in a remarkably short period of time. It operates the Android-based Khatabook app that enables companies to keep a digital log of their financial transactions and accept payments online.

    Khatabook enables micro, small and medium merchants to track business transactions safely and securely. The app is available in over 12 vernacular languages, catering to a diverse audience in the country.

    It helps businesses and individuals manage the business and personal ledgers on their phones and computer devices along with helping them recall the due dates with the help of effective SMS and WhatsApp reminders about the same. This Bangalore-based mobile app service shares WhatsApp and SMS reminders to users when the money is due to be paid or collected.

    The Khatabook app has a free ‘Payment Reminders’ feature. With this feature, an automatic SMS is sent to your customers every time a transaction is recorded. Khatabook lets its users keep all details of credits and debits for any number of customers across multiple businesses ready and handy on their phones. Furthermore, Khatabook also helps its customers sync their transactions automatically, download, share and maintain reports of all the transactions, reap all the benefits of the effective QR code-based payments with 0% fees on transactions and more. In short, this app lets merchants do stress-free business.

    Khatabook – Industry Details

    Khatabook’s founder Ravish Naresh revealed on Twitter that Khatabook activated merchants in >95% Indian districts with 150Mn+ Customers. Based on the Indian MSME Data, Khatabook conducted research and analysis on the credit behavior of people across the country and also the impact of Covid-19 on small businesses.


    Here are some of the major findings:

    • Business volumes on credit are 45% higher for South Indian states vs the national average.
    • Credit given out by Khatabook merchants dropped by 40% in the initial Covid months. It has continued to recover to 80% of pre-pandemic levels by December.
    • Average days to recover debts increased by 25% during COVID for Khatabook Merchants.
    • Sectors like travel, construction, apparel were more impacted during 2020.

    Khatabook – Founders and Team

    Vaibhav Kalpe originally built Khatabook, which was later acquired by Kyte Technologies in 2018. Kalpe later joined the owning team of Kyte before he left the organization. The founding team of Khatabook currently has Ravish Naresh leading the company as the Co-founder and CEO along with other co-founders – Ashish Sonone, Dhanesh Kumar, and Jaideep Poonia.

    Khatabook - Founders & Team
    Khatabook – Founders & Team

    Ashish Sonone

    The Co-founder of Khatabook, Ashish Sonone is a IIT Bombay Btech graduate in Computer Science. JetSynthesys Pvt. Ltd and Qiosk – News for Professionals were the companies where Sonone worked as a Software Engineer and Consultant respectively before co-founding Frodo and Kyte, in both of which he also served as a Backend Engineer. Khatabook is the third company that Sonone has co-founded.

    Dhanesh Kumar

    Another Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay, Dhanesh Kumar started with Amazon as a Software Developer, who then realized his entrepreneurial and decided to co-found Knit Messaging, Kyte and now Khatabook, where he is still serving as a Co-founder.

    Jaideep Poonia

    Jaideep is an IIT Bombay alumnus from where he completed his Btech in Civil Engineering before completing S18 from Y-Combinator. Poonia has also been the co-founder of Knit Messaging, Kyte, and Khatabook as Dhanesh Kumar.  

    Ravish Naresh

    Co-founder and CEO of Khatabook, Ravish Naresh completed his Btech from IIT Bombay, much like the other co-founders of the company, after which he co-founded Housing.com, where he also served as a COO. It was after leaving Housing.com, Ravish co-founded Khatabook, where he is still working as a CEO.

    Khatabook currently works with around 300 employees.    

    Khatabook – Startup Story

    The story goes back to 2016, when Ravish Naresh along with his team of college friends, started a digital spend manager app, Kyte.ai. The app helped users understand their expense patterns using their SMS alerts. Kyte initially had good traction but did not reach the expected growth scale. Also, the team realized all their users were based out of metropolitan cities.

    On researching, they found that first-time online users did not deal with digital transactions, and they still rely on traditional khata or ledger books. As per Ravish, they wanted to build something that people want and then try to build a business around it.

    That is when the idea for Khatabook developed, and they started to work on a simple cash management app, which they named Khatabook. The parent company of Khatabook is Kyte Technologies.

    Khatabook – Mission and Vision

    The mission statement of Khatabook says, “Empowering Udhari Khata (Book-Keeping)”.

    “Started with a vision of transforming India’s small shops, today we are the biggest player in the small business segment digitizing a sector that forms the backbone of our economy. We are looking to work closely with the government and financial institutions to strengthen our market leadership and help MSMEs increase their income while making them more efficient and competitive,” said Ravish Naresh, CEO of Khatabook.

    The tagline of Khatabook is Business Hua Easy! The app lets every business go digital instead of following the same traditional method of book-keeping and making it easy to grow their business.

    Khatabook’s logo itself signifies what the company is all about. It maintains a digital record of all the transactions we make, something which our actual ‘Khatabook’ (the diary in which we maintain our financial record) does.

    Khatabook Logo
    Khatabook Logo

    Khatabook – Business Model

    Khatabook is a mobile app that helps small merchants to digitize their accounting and credit balance recording. It helps to reduce the burden of bookkeeping and accounting. It is just like having a khata in your pocket. The business model of Khatabook is making “Bharat” / India come online.

    It is 100% free to use and secure for all types of businesses with which shop owners can record credit (Jama) and debit (Udhaar) of customers. But Khatabook has no revenue source at present.

    Ravish Naresh, CEO of Khatabook, said they’re now developing the app to provide a complete financial solution for small businesses. The startup has plans to bring a host of new features onto the platform and UPI payment is next on the line.

    Khatabook has seen some growth in the past two and a half years, where it has emerged as an integral part of the MSME community in almost every district in India. A majority of the merchant users on the Khatabook platform have embraced the digital practices dumping their offline business practices.

    Furthermore, Khatabook has also introduced 3 other solutions apart from the Flagship Khatabook for the benefit of the MSMEs:

    • Biz Analyst – This is a leading SaaS business management solution from Khatabook designed to offer premium value-added on-demand services like sales and purchase reports, livestock updates, and other MIS reports. Biz Analyst can be integrated with Tally ERP9 and allows an overall view of the business operations.
    • Pagarkhata – This is a staff management platform for businesses by Khatabook which aims to help merchants to turn the staff attendance, payroll/wages, attendance updates, leaves, payments, and other processes digital.
    • Cashbook – Cashbook is another platform by Khatabook built as a cash handling and tracking solution. Furthermore, it also helps with cash sales and expense management.

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    Khatabook – Revenue Model

    In 2020, Khatabook has active merchants in 95% of Indian districts, recording over $100 Billion in transactions with over 150 million customers.

    Khatabook has recorded total revenue of Rs 17 crore during FY21, thereby registering a 25.3% decline from Rs 24.4 crore. The startup’s revenue from operations, currently recorded at Rs 16.9 crore, witnessed a dip of around 30.7% from Rs 24.4 crore that it posted in FY20. On the other hand, the other income of the startup rose from Rs 12.7 crore in FY20 to Rs 21 crore in FY21.

    Diving into the profit-loss segment, it has been discovered that Khatabook has managed to reduce its loss by 63%, which has been brought down from Rs 89.5 crore to Rs 33 crore. This is primarily due to the selling of its intellectual property, some of which it sold to its holding company, Kyte Technologies Inc. for around Rs 57 crore.

    In FY22, the company experienced significant growth in its operating revenue, surging from Rs 17 crore in 2021 to an impressive Rs 71 crore. However, this growth was accompanied by a corresponding increase in total expenses, which escalated from Rs 109 crore in FY21 to Rs 189 crore in FY22. Consequently, the company’s losses also saw a substantial rise, soaring from Rs 33 crore in FY21 to Rs 111 crore in FY22 during this period.

    Here’s a look at the financials of Khatabook:

    Khatabook Financials
    Khatabook Financials

    Operating revenue for the Khatabook increased by 14% in FY23 to Rs 81 crore. Conversely, there was a marginal rise in losses of 4% to Rs 125 crore.
    Due to increased employee benefit costs (wages, salaries, PPF, etc.), which amounted to over Rs 142 crore, the company’s total expenses stayed steady at Rs 223 crore, a slight increase from Rs 189 crore in the year FY22.

    Khatabook – Growth

    Khatabook has registered around 10 Million monthly active users and the numbers are growing.

    Growth had an excellent trajectory, which did take a hit during the lockdown in line with other external factors. With the relaxation of the lockdown, the company started reviving the business at a steady pace. The revival has been faster with users in tier-2 and tier-3 cities of India.

    As a very relevant offering for merchants in the pandemic, the company also launched the MyStore app to enable them to take their stores online in 15 seconds and continue doing business through their preferred communication channels.

    Within a month after the launch, more than 2.5 million merchants across India have installed MyStore. Khatabook also initiated work from home active, 24/7 call center support for merchants. Currently, the revenue model of Khatabook depends on its funding.

    Some key growth highlights would include:

    • 5 crore+ registered businesses
    • A spread over 4000+ cities of India
    • Powered by popular investors like Sequoia Capital, DST Global Partners, Y Combinator, Tencent, B Capital Group and more

    Khatabook – Acquisitions

    Khatabook has acquired Biz Analyst on March 25, 2021, which remains the company’s maiden acquisition.

    Khatabook – Awards and Achievements

    Some of the popular awards and achievements that Khatabook has seen so far are:

    • It was declared as the Winner of Nasscom League of 10 in the Emerge50 Awards 2020
    • The company’s app won the Best Innovative Mobile App award at IAMAI 2020
    • mCube announced Khatabook the winner of the Best Content in a Mobile Marketing Campaign in its awards ceremony in 2020

    Khatabook – Partnerships

    Khatabook currently partners with the former skipper of the India cricket team, M.S. Dhoni, who is an investor as well as the brand ambassador of the company. The strategic partnership was announced on March 17, 2020.

    Khatabook – Challenges Faced

    Khatabook also faced a shortage of money during its initial days just like other new startups. Ravish, the CEO of Khatabook realized that they need to look into serious funding options.

    In the series A phase, they were struggling a bit with the funding. The growth hit them fast, so the seed round took place in 5 bridges. It was the highest in the history of funding for Sequoia.

    “Well, the struggles were mainly money-related. We knew we were working on something important and kept going with it. Often it was difficult to imagine the future of our initiatives with no funding, but perseverance is what got us where we are today,” said Ravish Naresh.

    He also said that the adoption of their product was not only dependent on the app’s visibility and convenience but also on educating users, not just for the app but also for using digital technology in general. The biggest hurdle was to persuade offline shopkeepers to come online and train them for digital transactions.

    Switching away from the convention is understandably tricky and daunting for merchants who mainly have offline workflows. Persuading traditional enterprises to embrace the digital still remains a crucial challenge for them.

    “It is important to build something that people want and then try to build a business around it, and that is exactly what the team did.” said Ravish.

    Khatabook announced the shutdown of MyStore on November 10, 2021. The eCommerce enablement product was one of the core products of the company, which also contributed to the expansion of the company by raising funds along with helping the company with its bookkeeping requirements.

    “Thank you for being a part of the MyStore journey. We are planning on discontinuing the MyStore App. Your MyStore App won’t work from 15 November 2021,” goes a blog post from the company.

    The company has further asked its users to download their invoices by sharing order invoices before doing away with the app.

    Khatabook had previously been dragged into a legal fight with its rival, Dukaan over the plagiarism of the name when MyStore was named ‘Dukaan by Khatabook’, in August 2020. Khatabook later decided to change it to ‘MyStore by Khatabook after a legal battle of around four months. The tagline of the app, however, remains the same, ”Create Your Online Dukaan in 15 Seconds” to date on Play Store.

    Khatabook – Funding and Investors

    Khatabook has raised a total of $186.5M in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on 24th August 2021, from a Series C round. Khatabook is funded by 34 investors in total. Tribe Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures are the most recent investors. The valuation of Khatabook was estimated to be around $600 Million in August 2021.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Aug 24, 2021 Series C $100M Tribe Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures
    May 20, 2020 Series B $60M B Capital Group
    Oct 1, 2019 Series A $25M –
    Apr 19, 2019 Seed Round $1.5M Surge

    Khatabook – Competitors

    The top competitors of Khatabook are:

    Khatabook – LayOff

    In a strategic move aimed at optimizing costs and prolonging the company’s financial runway, the organization recently made the difficult decision to implement workforce reductions, resulting in the departure of over 40 employees from various departments. These actions were undertaken as part of a broader effort to navigate the challenges faced by growth-stage companies.

    While undoubtedly a tough choice, the company’s leadership recognized the importance of preserving its financial stability and ensuring a sustainable future. This move reflects a commitment to adaptability and resilience in an ever-evolving business landscape, with the hope that these measures will ultimately position the company for long-term success.

    “Khatabook has laid off 42 employees across sales, marketing and analytics, and technology verticals,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “People who lost their jobs in the exercise have been given standard severance packages including 3 months salary among others.”

    Khatabook – Future Plans

    Khatabook plans to expand and achieve two to three times business growth by simplifying the traditional way of doing business. Remaining committed to India’s MSME segment, Khatabook will be adding services to streamline and simplify business processes for the merchants.

    “Committing to a goal is essential for business directions and decisions. One thing that pandemic has taught us is that we need to think through the most unlikely scenario and make sure we are relevant in all possible scenarios or are agile enough to change our direction as per the need of the hour,” says Ravish.

    Khatabook has already managed to build a widely accepted tech ecosystem for the MSMEs across the country and will now concentrate on the disbursement of financial services through its tech platforms. These financial services will further enable smooth lending, payment, and deposits in the MSME space.

    Khatabook is eyeing the right partnership opportunities to seamlessly roll out the solutions that would benefit the economic aspirations of countless small businesses.

    Khatabook has announced a buyback scheme of ESOPs worth USD 10 Million in order to acknowledge the contributions of its employees, the ex-employees and the early investors who stayed by the company and helped it grow. The employees who are eligible for the ESOP scheme would be able to sell up to 30% of their vested options. Meanwhile, Khatabook has also expanded its ESOP pool to $50 Mn.

    Furthermore, Khatabook is also looking to strengthen its talent base by hiring employees for the engineering, product, design, analytics, and data science departments.

    Khatabook – FAQs

    What is Khatabook?

    Khatabook is the world’s fastest-growing SaaS company. It is India’s leading business management app for MSMEs that enables companies to keep a digital log of their financial transactions and accept payments online. It’s like having a khata in your pocket.

    Is Khatabook an Indian app?

    Yes, Khatabook is an Indian app founded in 2019 with an aim to reduce the burden of bookkeeping and accounting.

    Which company owns Khatabook?

    Kyte Technologies is the Parent Company of Khatabook.

    Who is the CEO of Khatabook?

    Ravish Naresh is the CEO and Co-founder of Khatabook.

    Who are the founders of Khatabook?

    Khatabook was founded by Ashish Sonone, Dhanesh Kumar, Vaibhav Kalpe (Ex-Khatabook), Jaideep Poonia and Ravish Naresh in 2019.

    How does Khatabook make money?

    The Khatabook revenue model is non-existent at the moment. Naresh says their focus is now on developing the app to provide a complete financial solution to small businesses.

    What is the use of Khatabook?

    Khatabook app enables MSMEs to keep a digital log of their financial transactions and accept payments online.

    What is the valuation of Khatabook?

    The valuation of Khatabook was estimated to be around $600 Million.

  • A Glimpse of Kunal Shah’s Most Successful Investments

    Unacademy, Slice, RazorPay, ChefKart, Khatabook, and Digit Insurance are all companies that have two things in common. They are all a part of the Indian startup ecosystem and they are all a part of the Kunal Shah Investment Portfolio.

    Who is Kunal Shah
    Most Successful Kunal Shah’s Investment

    Who is Kunal Shah

    He is a man with many adjectives – an active angel investor, serial entrepreneur, mentor, and advisor. The Indian startup ecosystem recognizes Kunal Shah as the Founder & CEO of CRED, a fin-tech Indian unicorn. He fulfills the advisory role in multiple well-known organizations like Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., AngelList, Sequoia Capital, and the Indian division of Y Combinator. The enigmatic man has an investment portfolio that is more than 200 startups strong. In 2021, Hurun India said Kunal Shah held the most number of investments in startups that may become unicorns in the next few years.

    A source close to Kunal Shah said – “Kunal really wants to do what he can for the ecosystem. If that one random founder can sell his company’s story to investors because Kunal Shah’s name is on his pitch deck, he does not mind that. This is his version of philanthropy.”

    Most Successful Kunal Shah’s Investment

    Over the years many startups that have been funded by Kunal Shah have seen phenomenal success. Of course, some have missed the mark but the successful one have been on a growth and expansion journey that is inspirational.

    1. Unacademy

    Unacademy

    Unacademy is an ed-tech platform that was founded in 2015 by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini and is headquartered in Bangalore. It began unconventionally as a YouTube tutorial channel of short videos by Gaurav Munjal, then an engineering student n himself. By December 2015, Hemesh and Roman joined him to launch the Unacademy app which aimed at creating free interactive content.

    It quickly gained popularity and by 2017 more than 5000 educators, 1 million learners, and more than 40,000 classes were launched. In January 2017, Unacademy raised USD 4.5 million in Series A funding and a year later it acquired the Jaipur-based online exam preparation and learning platform WIFIStudy for USD 10 million. Its growth continued as it launched its subscription-based model Unacademy Plus in 2019. In the same year, it also secured funding of approximately USD 87 million from investors. 2020 saw Unacademy achieve the coveted unicorn status and was named as one of the official sponsors of the Indian Premier League for 2020-2022. It also raised a Series G funding in November 2020 at a valuation of USD 2 billion. A year later, in 2021, it raised USD 440 million in a series of H funding. The beginning of this year saw Unacademy become one of the founding members of IAMAI’s India Edtech consortium.

    2. RazorPay

    Razorpay

    Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur founded the fintech company Razorpay in 2015 which is headquartered in Bangalore. It was the fintech startup’s aim to provide frictionless transactions for online businesses with clean, developer-friendly APIs and hassle-free integration.

    It earned unicorn status in 2020 amidst the Covid-19 pandemic through its October 2020 funding round and raising USD 100 million. In December 2021, it raised USD 375 million in Series F funding and became the most valued fintech startup in India at USD 7.5 billion as of December 2021. Razorpay’s total funding as of June 2022 is USD 815.7 million.

    The growth trajectory of Razorpay has been consistent throughout the years. In 2017 it launched four products namely Route, Smart Collect, Subscriptions, and Invoices allowing businesses to manage multiple aspects of money movement. It also launched a subsidiary named Razorpay Capital, a lending platform supporting SMEs with easy and quick access to lenders. As technology is evolving, Razorpay is adding more and better features including introducing Razorpay X. Razorpay X is a unique solution allowing businesses to conduct every activity that is offered by banks.

    3. Digit Insurance

    Digit Insurance

    Headquartered in Bangalore, Digit Insurance was founded by Kamlesh Goyal in 2017. As the name suggests, the company primarily deals in insurance products and financial services. Digit Insurance’s product portfolio includes health insurance, car insurance, commercial vehicle insurance, 2-wheeler insurance, and travel insurance.

    The insurance firm has gone through eight funding rounds and raised a total funding of USD 530.8 million. It reached unicorn status in 2021. As of January 2022, Digit Insurance was valued at approximately USD 3.54 billion.

    Since its inception, Digit Insurance’s growth has been consistent and it witnessed its highest growth in 2020 with 31.9% and earning a premium of USD 186 million between April 2020 and December 2020. This growth amidst the Covid-19 lockdowns and subsequent restrictions was owed to two of their products – Covid Health Insurance and Fire Insurance. In FY 2021-2022 Digit Insurance recorded its total gross recorded premium since inception at USD 52.68 billion. The insurance company is considering an IPO in a bid to raise USD 500 million to be listed by January 2023.

    4. Khatabook

    Khata Book

    It is popularly known as Digital India’s Digital Khata. It was launched in 2018 in Bangalore by Ashish Sonone, Dhanesh Kumar, Vaibhav Kalpe, and Jaideep Poonia and has emerged as India’s fastest-growing SaaS company. Khatabook is a business management app, operating on an Android platform that enables MSMEs to keep a digital log of their financial transactions and digitize their accounting. The app also supports online payments and is available in 12 regional languages which cater to a diverse audience.

    By the year 2020, Khatabook had a user base of merchants from 95% of Indian districts recording USD 100 billion in transactions and more than 150 million customers. The business has witnessed a phenomenal growth trajectory by registering more than 5 crore businesses spread over more than 4000 cities across India.

    Khatabook has raised a total of USD 186.5 million in its four rounds of funding. As of August 2021, Khatabook was valued at approximately USD 600 million. Going forward, Khatabook intends to grow its business two or three times by remaining committed to the MSME segment and simplifying the traditional way of doing business. Its app is already widely accepted within the MSME framework of the country. Khatabook is now looking forward to offering disbursement of financial services through its tech platform.

    Conclusion

    Over the years, there are many startups that Kunal Shah has funded. The success stories that have emerged from these investments are proof of the ingenuity of the Indian entrepreneurial mind. These companies have grown and expanded and show every sign of marching forward into the future with their focus firmly on making their businesses better and more innovative. Some of the new startups that Kunal has invested in are AntWalk, BimaPlan, Bundle-O-Joy, Coffee and many more within the time this article was framed. The future looks promising and it will be interesting to see which of these startups make it to the next generation of unicorns.

    FAQs

    Is Kunal an angel Shah investor?

    Kunal Shah has topped the list of angel investors with more than 200 investments done across startups such as Razorpay, Unacademy, Khatabook, Mensa, Digit Insurance, and more.

    What is the qualification of Kunal Shah?

    Kunal Shah graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Wilson College, Mumbai, and briefly pursued an MBA from SVKM’s NMIMS before dropping out.

    How many companies has Kunal Shah invested in?

    Kunal Shah has made investments in 210 companies.

  • India’s Soonicorn 2021: A Closer Look At The Future Unicorns

    Over the last four years, the Indian entrepreneurship ecosystem has risen from 35K startups in 2016 to more than 55K startups in 2020 with more than $48.7 billion being raised during the revealed rounds of investment. As a result of the exponential growth in consumer demand and the increased use of digital goods and services by individuals and firms, more than 15+ unicorns have arisen in India since 2018. The word Soonicorn applies to start-ups that could become Unicorns whereas a unicorn is a startup carrying a value of up to $ 1 billion.

    Now let’s take a look at a list of the Soonicorns of India:

    1. MobiKwik
    2. CRED
    3. PayMate
    4. BharatPe
    5. Capital Float
    6. Acko
    7. Lendingkart
    8. KhataBook
    9. Fino Paytech
    10. Vivriti Capital
    FAQ’s
    Conclusion

    1. MobiKwik

    Mobikwik Logo
    MobiKwik Logo

    MobiKwik is an Indian organization founded in 2009 offering a digital wallet and a mobile payment system. Online wallets may be used for purchases to add money to their clients. The Bank of India reserve approved MobiKwik’s e-wallet to be used by the company in 2013 and began providing customers with small loans for its service in May 2016.

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    2. CRED

    Cred Logo
    Cred Logo

    CRED was founded by Kunal Shah in November 2018, after an investment of $1 M in Bangalore, India. CRED is an Indian credit card bill transferring app. CRED has been mentioned among the future unicorns by CB Insights in June 2020.

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    3. PayMate

    PayMate Logo
    PayMate Logo

    PayMate provides a cloud-based network for big businesses and SMBs to move from slow, expensive forms, such as cash and checks, to digital payments in real-time. It digitizes the entire payment period to boost overall performance and minimize time, commitment, energy, and costs by more than 50 percent.

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    4. BharatPe

    BharatPe Logo
    BharatPe Logo

    BharatPe plans to make the deal via (15-day) deposits due to the dealer commercializing interest. In case of an emergency, dealer partners can, in 15 days from the deal, cancel the settlement by paying a withdrawal charge of 1 percent.

    5. Capital Float

    Capital Float Logo
    Capital Float Logo

    Capital Float was formed in 2013 and became the country’s largest digital lender. SMEs working in sales, trade, and logistics are given working capital loans. They also fund online and offline customer transactions by way of various A-list alliances.

    6. Acko

    Acko Logo
    Acko Logo

    Acko is an Indian general insurance company that is in the private sector. In line with a digital model, Acko offers a digital forum for all market activities for the company. The business seeks to promote startups as well. Acko expanded the financing of Amazon, Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, and Catamaran Ventures by 274 crores in 2018.

    7. Lendingkart

    Lendingkart Logo
    Lendingkart Logo

    Lendingkart Finance aims to ensure credit availability for SMEs who either have no or currently lack capital access to credit. The organization plans to pay out loans within 72 hours with limited paperwork. It seeks to transform small business loans by making it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to access lending. Data security is very important for Lendingkart Community. All the details are kept private.

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    8. KhataBook

    Khata Book Logo
    Khata Book Logo

    KhataBook is a smartphone application that helps small business owners and Kirana stores handle their books in India by helping them track the money owing by means of a digital directory. Both data collected on the Khata Book App are kept safely in the maintained database. Password-protected access to the database is tightly restricted. In accordance with technical advances, the security procedures are checked and revised periodically.

    9. Fino Paytech

    Fino Paytech Logo
    Fino Paytech Logo

    Fino Paytech is an innovator, industry pioneer, and entrepreneur for organizations such as banks, government, and insurance companies.

    They are a corporate and technical banking network in combination with a wide variety of services. They even facilitate end-to-end consumer procurement and maintenance as an alternative banking platform.  Innovation has tackled the problems of the serviceability and scalability of existing banking networks.

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    10. Vivriti Capital

    Vivriti Capital
    Vivriti Capital

    The goal of Vivriti Capital is to build the largest and most significant financial network service that serves a customer base for institutions, corporations, small businesses, and people lacking efficient access to financial services. Their site CredAvenue is a one-stop solution to prospect, assess, conduct, and track debt. It’s an interactive business debt network.

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    FAQ’s

    What is a Soonicorn?

    Soonicorns are tech companies, fintech, or businesses with the potential to become Unicorns in the future.

    What is a startup unicorn?

    In the venture capital industry, the term unicorn refers to any startup that reaches the valuation of $1 billion. The term was first coined by Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy ventures when she referred to the 39 startups that had a valuation of over $1 billion as unicorns.

    Is there any Unicorn in India?

    India now has 37 unicorns, having added 16 to the list in 2020. It stands third in global country rankings, well behind the US and China, but ahead of the UK and Germany.

    What is a tech unicorn?

    Unicorn is the term used in the venture capital industry to describe a startup company with a value of over $1 billion. Some popular unicorns include Airbnb, Uber, SpaceX, Robinhood, and SoFi.

    Conclusion

    In 2021 the startups that are performing well and are the most profitable will turn soonicorns. By the market size of these startups, we can expect new startups emerging as unicorns this year. Startups into Fintech, EdTech, and MedTech domains are in much demand due to the Covid-19. There is high demand for these startups and have the potential to grow in the coming days. We are seeing more startups in the field of FinTech. Fintech is the lead because digital payments have profoundly infiltrated metro and Tier 1 cities and now, other financial digital assets, such as finance, insurance, and neobanking, are more likely to become the addressable basis. In particular, lending firms and payments have been the main contributors to our soon-to-be-finished list.