India is a country where you can find kirana stores in each lane and a report by ASSOCHAM estimates approximately 12 million such stores in the country as of 2019. When all the malls and big stores are shut because of coronavirus, it is the local kirana stores that are proving to be reliable and dependable. Even though SMEs are the largest job creator they face several challenges. One of the biggest challenges for them presently is digitization. About 250-300 million SMEs are looking to get on the digital platforms.
Anand Deshpande, MD Chairman and founder of Persistent systems started Deazzle in 2015 to solve this problem and bring SMEs online. He was later joined with Chetna Pawar and Santosh Dawara, both of them having a strong entrepreneurial background. The Pune-based startup claims to have single platform solution for all digital problems for SMEs. They started with an app that managed everyday operations for SMEs like payments, invoicing, subscriptions and employee management.
The team soon realized that the customers were using the app to basically collect and track their payments on a point-of-sale. They noticed that the QR Codes were changed almost every month and they will have to create something that is independent of payment method for them to be relevant. Then came the Eureka moment when they thought to use the SMSes that QR code sent to the merchants.
The solution was worked on within couple of weeks and Paytrac was launched in October 2019. It is an inward payment tracker for small businesses who rely on QR and POS for payments They have about 65000 businesses on their platform by now. The user can sign up and provide the necessary permissions for the app to create a business report for them for last 28 days.
The app’s dashboard shows daily collection through several modes of payment at one place. They can see their bank account’s activity as well and for cash transactions, they can add the data manually. They provide them reports based on this data which helps them in decision making. They combine all the data from multiple spaces and provides one platform for all.
India has the largest SME sector with 40% people employed in it. This in itself brings more attention to the sector. Even Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon had announced $1 billion funding for Indian SMEs. Even Indian startups like Udaan has been eyeing this sector closely. The biggest USP for Paytrac is that they provide one platform for all payment modes. The company has gained some seed funding in past and is looking for more funds now to grow.