VCs invest $13m in Indian payroll services player
Niyo Solutions, an Indian financial technology company specialized in payroll services, has raised a $13.2 million Series A round from a group of VC firms, including Hong Kong’s Horizons Ventures.
US-based GPs JS Capital and Social Capital, as well as existing domestic investor Prime Venture Partners, also participated. The capital will be used for product development, team expansion, increased exposure to tier-1 cities in India and entry into new tier-two and tier-three markets.
Established in 2016, Niyo offers services that target the entire employee payroll and benefits value chain with a view to simplifying money transfer processes and improving transparency for both employers and employees. The company operates a corporate portal for salary dispersal, a mobile app for personal transaction monitoring, and a payroll system that allows a number of job-related expense and payment accounts to be managed with a single card.
“This is an area that hasn’t seen much innovation in the Indian technology ecosystem, despite the massive addressable market,” Arjun Sethi, a partner at Social, said in a statement. “We believe that India is on the brink of unprecedented consumer consumption, and that movement begins with infrastructure that manages people’s earnings in a reliable and modern way.”
Niyo claims a user base of 500 corporations and 100,000 salaried employees through partnerships with Yes Bank and DCB Bank. The company aims to expand this footprint to 5,000 organizations with one million salaried employees by the end of the year. It notes that it has filed multiple product and process patents in the banking, taxation and financial services space.
Employee payroll in India is considered to be underdeveloped and characterized by inefficient, paper-driven processes. As a result, employers and employees fail to take advantage of available tax exemptions and various products related to investment and lending. The country is said to have about 75 million salaried employees who are app-savvy but underserviced in this category.
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