Bengaluru-based payroll and benefits tech startup, NiYO Solutions, announced that it has raised $13.2 million in a Series A funding round. The round saw participation from Chamath Palihapitiya-owned Social Capital, Israel-based J S Capital (the family office of Jonathan Soros), Li-Ka-Shing owned Horizon Ventures and the startup’s existing investor, Bengaluru-based Venture Capital fund, Prime Ventures , which had previously invested $1 million in seed funding in 2016.

NiYO Solutions was co-founded in 2015 by ex-Kotak Mahindra Executive Vinay Bagri and former Mobikwik employee, Virendra Bisht. The company serves two segments – the white collar salaried segment and the blue collar workers (for which it has a cheap savings bank product).

The startup offers a number of expense card solutions consisting of salary accounts, meal cards, canteen solutions, corporate gift cards, reimbursement accounts, international travel and corporate credit cards. The cards can be used to pay for food, fuel, medical bills and the expenditures are tracked automatically against individual reimbursement claims.

The company plans to use the influx of funds to expand its operations to 38 locations, upgrade its technology and develop new products for its salaried segment. The start-up has partnered with Yes Bank and DCB Bank to offer its products to employees and currently has a user base of 1,00,000 salaried employees whereas till date the company has clocked over 500 corporations. NiYO aims to have a user base of over 5000 organisations and 1 million salaried employees by the end of 2018. So far the company’s portfolio of clients is 40 per cent enterprise and 60 per cent MSME companies.

The company, along with its rival Zeta, have taken a digital approach to the concept behind Sodexo meal coupons. The coupons, which can be used in canteens and specific merchant outlets, are used by most companies as a part of their tax saving methods. NiYO and Zeta have brought this entire process online. NiYO has tested its product in new markets including Pune and Ahmedabad.

“For corporates, it means time saving, deploying less manpower in doing manual work of matching bills and so on. They can drastically optimize their time. The bigger market is MSMEs who are heavily dependent manual intervention,” said Vinay Bagri, co-founder and CEO, Vinay Bagri. According to him, this paperless approach can lead to a 40 per cent decline in per employee cost of executing salaries and reimbursements.

According to Bagri, the target audience for the company’s products in India consists of approximately 75 million salaried employees. Additionally, the product would also lead to a rise in the take- home salaries and simplify financial planning as well as other banking needs for employees. “We believe that the rapidly growing number of salaried employees in India have not seen much innovation when it comes to their payroll and benefits. They are mobile and app-savvy and very demanding. Our aim is to optimize the product suite for employees in areas of taxation, lending and wealth,” NiYO CEO, Vinay Bagri said.

The lack of innovation in the employee payroll segment along with the use of paper driven, inefficient traditional process for employee tax returns, have allowed the startup to reach its current position. The company also plans to include financial products on its platform like loans and mutual funds in addition to the basic banking services it currently provides.”We want to implement more financial products going forward. It will help employees identify the right products for their tax saving such as ELSS, mutual funds etc,” said Vinay Bagri when speaking on the topic.

NiYO’s mobile app allows users to access their account details and keep a check on their expenditures and allowances digitally once e-KYC and self on-boarding have been enabled. Additionally it allows users to attach bill proof through their mobile phones and digitally store bills and receipts on cloud.

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