Hylobiz, an SME Neobank, focused on digitizing Receivables | Payables & faster access to credit line needs, headquartered in India is now live in UAE.
Backed up by marquee angel investors, part of leadership teams at Google and Juniper in the US, and in India (Ex Myntra, Multiply Ventures, FF21).
With active rollouts with proven brands in India and has built an end-to-end offering for the SME distribution value chain, now HYLOBIZ is ready to empower SMEs in UAE markets, having secured some significant partnerships within the UAE SME ecosystem.
It’s a moment of pride for us, says Ashish Mahal, Cofounder of Hylobiz. He continues –
In UAE or more generically in MENA, we have seen multiple B2C payment providers mushrooming over the last couple of years, but not many solutions exist that are SME-centric. With UAE continuously rolling out a very conducive business ecosystem for freelancers and SMEs, there is a need for a solution that digitizes the payment collection process with end-to-end automated traceability to the invoice and the credit received against it. Also, UAE being a trading market, there is a need to have tools that automate the real-time tracking of cash and cheque collected by field agents. These are the use-cases where Hylobiz comes in and adds value to the SME & Freelance ecosystem. Hylobiz is in advanced discussions with financial institutions to bring working capital financing to the businesses on its platform, building it on “Open Banking APIs”
Hylobiz is currently serving SMEs in India with some prestigious clients like CEAT (automotive parts distribution), FF21 [hospitality industry], and Orix (leasing and financial services). Hylobiz is an SME assistance that integrates with any ERP/accounting system to help in collecting money faster with real-time cash and cheque collection (tracking) and automatic reconciliations.
As the Founder Vishal Gupta states – We gathered the transactional gaps within the SME value chain and picked Receivables | Payables | Credit Access as our core transactions. With the Segment clearly defined as the SME distribution value chain and transaction sets being Receivables/payables we started building the solution in India. Our vision is clear that we will build the solution in India, and then expand globally starting with MENA markets as our second corridor. It gives us the best of both worlds — Fintech advancements and solution possibilities with volumes in India and global adoption with monetization model with UAE. HYLOBIZ’s core focus is on India and MENA markets for the next few years.
Our product is a transformation in the SME market! We want to ease out SME pain of offering transparency in payments. We want businesses to focus on expansion and growth rather than putting energy into chasing customers for payments or spending time between ERP & bank statements reconciling books. We consider a “Network of transparent ledgers, with digital payments” to be basic hygiene, required within the SME value chain. The digital footprint of the SME’s business further will empower them to get easier access to credit.
We were thrilled to receive feedback from Mr. Raveen Sastry of Multiple Ventures – An internet of ledgers opens up multiple possibilities. Hylo makes this a reality by enabling disparate systems for invoice generation, payment reconciliation, account receivables & payables, etc. to talk to each other. This solution increases efficiencies across the network enabling faster payments, better cash management & in general enables the owner to spend more time on value-adding activities. This is a solution whose time has come
Using Hylobiz is quite simple. Let your ERP/Invoicing system generate an invoice as it does today and let HYLOBIZ do the rest for sending the invoices, reminding the customer for payments, collecting the money, and crediting to SME’s bank account with a real-time reconciliation done straight back into the ERP/Invoicing engine that released the invoice. In the case of physical collection via Cash/Cheque, Hylobiz tightens the controls avoiding delays and leakages with physical collections. The mobile app powers the feet on street staff to stay connected and have a transparent view of ledgers and collections aligned with the supplier & Buyer.
When we shared the news of the hylobiz rollout in UAE, we received some heartfelt messages from industry veterans and our mentors from India and US.
As Ram Rastogi, a thought leader in Financial Services and Reg Tech says – A significant time of SMEs is spent on mundane manual jobs that include sales invoice tracking, payments, tax, and accounting. That also leads to newer challenges like improper accounting, non-compliance, extended credit period, penalties, etc. If we look at the data, ~35% of the entrepreneur’s time is occupied with “non-revenue generating” activities. For Startups, SME,s and B2B who do not have “cash reserves” it’s hard to spend so much time on such activities. The focus for the businesses should be growth and revenue generation, and I feel hylobiz is making SMEs aim for it.
Hylobiz is an SME-focused Neo Bank, which will automate banking and accounting for modern businesses of India. Hylobiz wants to disrupt traditional banking by offering API-driven digital banking for SMEs.”
The most motivating thing is when you get a boost from the veterans who have spent around 15 years at Google Inc, architecting payments, billing, and digitization engines. This message from Venu Vemula one of our investors is really special as it pushes us to deliver more. He says –
Congrats on the launch and a great step even during the tough times.
“Foundation of every business is ineffective cash management and more specifically outstanding balances in both directions. The transparency Hylobiz brings, eliminates the uncertainty of losing supply or vendor service; putting the whole business at risk, and the further transparency opens the doors for predictability and driving better business decisions for e.g extending the better payment terms on the customer by customer basis”
HYLOBIZ is at an early stage of adoption as well as revenue generation which hasn’t been so common for startups to be generating revenues. As of now with an MRR of 1500 USD within the 5 months of the formal launch in India, the startup is aiming to hit a 50K USD MRR by end of the Calendar year 2020. With their launch in UAE on April 23rd, 2020 with a plan to expand into MENA markets through channel partners/alliances.