Mumbai-based fintech startup BeeWise, recently launched a ‘Savings Wallet’ to help consumers save money on their daily expenses across online and offline stores through a cashback model.
The startup had raised an angel round of funding in November, from 500 Startups, Citrus Pay founders – Jitendra Gupta, Satyen Kothari, Shaadi.com founder – Anupam Mittal, GSF/InnerChef Founder – Rajesh Sawhney, Toppr founder – Zishaan Hayath, Myntra/NudgeSpot founder – Raveen Sastry.
The proceeds of the funding were majorly utilised the funds for product development, building analytics capabilities and customer acquisition.
The Idea And The Need
BeeWise was founded in September, 2015 by BITS and IIIT Alumni Varun Deshpande, Ratnesh Ray and Siddharth Verma. Prior to founding BeeWise, Varun, A BITS alum had founded TopTalent and had worked with Toppr where he met Ratnesh Ray, who had previously worked with Tinyowl. The third founder, Siddharth Verma, is also a BITS Pilani Goa alum.
Consumers in general look for saving money. BeeWise is a money saving app which utilises transactional data to help users save more. It connects users with their preferred merchants and brands.
Founder Varun, prior to BeeWise, had spent over 2 years building his previous startup. He had gone straight 30 months without taking a salary. Later he moved on and took up a day job of handling marketing at Toppr, Mumbai’s high cost of living and expenditure on rent, food, travel etc meant he was left wondering where did all his salary vanish. The team collaborated to find an answer for the same through BeeWise.
BeeWise connects consumers and businesses using financial data. Every year, over 1.5 Bn card transactions are made in India, worth $60 Bn. BeeWise is targeting to map each and every one of them.
How It Works
For merchants, it provides a frictionless way to attract new customers, re-engage lapsed customers and reward loyal customers based on financial data.
BeeWise Wallet, powered by Citrus Pay, acts as a gatekeeper of these ‘Merchant-funded rewards’. It uses purchase intelligence to understand consumer preferences and accurately predict where the user is likely to do the next transaction.
It has analysed over 5 Mn transactions worth $500 Mn across 60+ Banks in India. It provides merchants with key insights from historical purchase data to identify, reach, and influence likely buyers and measure the sales impact of their marketing campaigns.
Varun Deshpande, co-founder of BeeWise, explains “BeeWise is a money saving app which helps users save more on their daily expenses through cashbacks. At the same time, we are creating a secure way for merchants to use financial data for targeting consumers which has never been possible before. Café Coffee Day, for instance, can target users who have shopped at Barista and offer them rewards. Consumers looking for these rewards can claim them on the app and use their bank cards to pay. It’s that simple.”
The team believes that with Savings Wallet, consumers can start saving money on every transaction while merchants can target new, lapsed and loyal customers based on their purchase data.
The startup is planning to onboard 500 merchants in the next 6 months, drive sales of INR 25 Cr for them and unlock savings worth INR 2 Cr for consumers.
