WhatsApp integrated merchant e-commerce platform Bikayi has raised $2 million as a part of its seed round of funding, from a clutch of international investors including early stage fund, Mantis Ventures, Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, amongst other notable angels. The company will use the funds for growth and expansion by hiring more talent and onboarding newer merchants on its platform.
Raipur-girl Sonakshi Nathani and Karnal-boy Ashutosh Singla met as classmates at IIIT (International Institute of Information Technology), Hyderabad, in 2011. Working on various projects together, right from their first year of college, the two computer science engineers made a good team and became fast friends. After college, Sonakshi went on to work for Microsoft in Hyderabad as a software engineer for three years. Ashutosh, on the other hand, moved to Canada and had a stint each with US-headquartered HR startup Zenefits and Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey’s payments startup Square.
The duo knew they wanted to set up their own tech company and had a few startup ideas, but weren’t exactly sure of which problem to zero in on. In a rather bold move, both quit their jobs by October 2018, because they felt that if they continued with the day jobs, the idea of starting up would probably never come to fruition. Around 2018-end, Sonakshi was back in her hometown of Raipur -- where her family has its real estate business of building residential colonies and also runs a grocery store -- when the ‘Eureka’ moment happened.
That grocery store is integral to this story because that is where the seeds of Sonakshi (26) and Ashutosh’s (25) startup Bikayi -- which has managed to turn profitable and raise $2 million in funding, all in about a year’s time -- were sown. Unlike Sonakshi, Ashutosh does not come from a business family. His mother was a teacher, while his father worked in the state irrigation department in Haryana.
The Canadian ecommerce company Shopify helps entrepreneurs create, scale, and manage their own online stores. There were some other options too but none of them “very easy” to get merchants on board, Sonakshi says. “In March 2019, we said why not we help and build it. Order management and catalogue management were what we primarily wanted to help out with. We said let’s quickly build an app where merchants can put their items. We started posting on wholesaler groups on Facebook about the app,” Sonakshi says. On April 1, 2019, the duo officially launched their startup, Bikayi, which allows small businesses to quickly and simply create their online stores, powered with all the necessary tools needed to manage ecommerce on WhatsApp.
“Anyone doing commerce on WhatsApp is our primary customer, whether it's a grocery store, wholesaler, manufacturer, retailer, restaurant, or a bakery,” Sonakshi says. The Bikayi app has both free and premium subscription-based offerings that start from Rs 1,999 and go up to Rs 7,999 per year. The subscriptions include benefits such as the ability to generate discount promo codes, different themes, analytics access etc.
“We are elated that prominent investors showed interest in Bikayi . In this process they are a part of upscaling Bikayi. With these funds we will hire more talent to accelerate product development, ramp up the platform and onboard a million new merchants," said Sonakshi Nathani, co-founder, Bikayi.
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Nathani adds that merchants on Bikayi are already doing daily transactions worth more than $2 crore on its platform. In addition to this, Bikayi is currently being used by grocery stores, wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers from more than 3000 towns across India, the company said.
“Bikayi is the company I am most excited about in the entire YC batch -- they have a tremendous opportunity to become the storefront of choice for the millions of small local businesses in India -- and eventually the entire developing world. They make commerce both local and personal, which is integral for success in India, and their growth numbers speak for themselves," said Ankur Nagpal, an angel Investor who also participated in the latest round of funding.
"Bikayi’s founders combine a deep understanding of their small business customers with top tier product execution. We loved that their product makes everyone’s lives easier, while fitting naturally into the way business is done," said Tim Suzman, general partner at Pioneer Fund.
As far as competition for the young startup is concerned, it is present in the form of corporate giants Amazon and Reliance Industries. Currently, more than 53% of Bikayi’s merchants are coming from Tier 3 & 4 cities.