AI Co. HaiVE.Tech Raises $1 Mn in Pre-Seed Funding Led by Mohan, CEO of IppoPay

HaiVE.Tech Team

The investment will further propel the company to expand its operations in India and Australia

HaiVE.Tech, an innovative on-premises AI provider, has successfully raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. The funding round was led by Mohan K, Founder and CEO of IppoPay, a renowned figure in the financial technology sector. This capital injection marks a significant milestone for the company as it positions itself for further expansion and growth in the AI industry.

The pre-seed funding will enable HaiVE.Tech to scale up its operations by expanding its engineering and marketing teams. With an increased workforce, the company aims to cater to its existing client base and those on its waitlist. The primary focus of the expansion is to serve the burgeoning demand for AI services across various industries and markets.

Deepika Loganathan,Co-Founder & CEO and Aravinth Ramesh Co-Founder & CTO HaiVE

Deepika Loganathan, Co-Founder & CEO from HaiVE.Tech said,“We are thrilled to have secured the pre-seed funding. This investment will fuel our mission to provide on-premises AI services, ensuring data privacy and intellectual property control for our clients. At HaiVE, we firmly believe that AI is a game-changer for businesses looking to scale up. Our AI solutions not only ensure complete data privacy and control but also allow our customers to seamlessly integrate their preferred tools. This flexibility, combined with our commitment to delivering exceptional AI capabilities, will drive our growth and establish HaiVE.Tech as the go-to provider for businesses seeking AI-powered solutions.”

"HaiVE is the game-changer for companies venturing into AI without risking their own competition. Just like a renowned food delivery startup that conquered the market by leveraging service scaling options, HaiVE empowers businesses by accumulating crucial data insights. By understanding the most popular food types in every neighborhood, they cleverly established cloud kitchens and expertly poached talent to offer high-volume products under their own brand. This strategic approach serves as a powerful lesson to any company relying on third-party hosted AI services. As an investor at HaiVE, I confidently endorse their solution for any company desiring AI integration without creating internal competition," said Mohan K, Founder, and CEO of IppoPay.

HaiVE.Tech has strategically chosen to target the FinTech sector in both India and Australia as the initial expansion markets. The company has already amassed a waitlist of clients across multiple continents, demonstrating the global demand for its services. Following its success in the FinTech industry, HaiVE.Tech plans to expand its reach to e-commerce companies in various geographies.

The investors' decision to back HaiVE.Tech was driven by the company's impressive track record and the increasing importance of AI and data ownership in the corporate landscape. Many multimillion-dollar companies, who are among HaiVE.Tech's early clients, recognized the critical role of AI in their infrastructure and sought funding to leverage this transformative technology. With the funding received, HaiVE.Tech is well-positioned to meet the growing demand for AI services across sectors and emerge as a leader in the market.

About HaiVE.Tech

HaiVE is a Singapore headquartered, AI company with R&D Team in Tamil Nadu. They offer On-Premise business specific tuned AI solutions for FinTech clients in Australia and India. Founded by Deepika Loganathan and Aravinth Ramesh in 2023, they aim to help companies adapt AI while still providing complete control and IP rights of the intelligence and data generated, instead of using famous 3rd party AI services.

IppoPay Acquires Roamsoft Technologies to ramp up developer base

IppoPay Technologies, a verticalized payments infrastructure company, said in a statement that it has acquired the business of Roamsoft Technologies Pvt Ltd, a fintech focused IT products and services company located in Tamil Nadu, for an undisclosed amount.

Roamsoft, headquartered in Chennai, is primarily engaged in the business of developing products and providing technology services to startups especially in the fintech and e-commerce space. This acquisition provides IppoPay a suite of products that will help supercharge IppoPay’s in-house capabilities.

Team 

Through this acquisition, IppoPay brings on board a team of over 40 developers with high cultural alignment. Bringing such developers onboard will help IppoPay rationalize time-to-hire and develop fresh talent who are aligned with IppoPay’s values.

Mohan K, CEO & Co-Founder of IppoPay, said “The remarkable team at Roamsoft is a pioneer at developing specialist software in the fintech industry. We see this acquisition akin to organic growth for us due to cultural fit that Roamsoft brings to the table with its leadership and development team. Ultimately, the goal of such acquisitions is to optimize time on development and bring people on board who can add value to us in the next phase of growth.”

Sofiya.T, the CEO of Roamsoft, said “IppoPay is a great cultural fit for Roamsoft. We are very excited to join the IppoPay family and continue on our growth journey.”

Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital, which was the founding stage investor in IppoPay said, “IppoPay is on a massive growth trajectory & it is important for us to have the right talent pool to keep up the pace of growth. In Roamsoft, we are bringing in a terrific team of fintech builders who are deeply aligned with our culture and mission.”

About IppoPay

IppoPay is a full-stack payments solutions company operating in verticals with a large TAM (total addressable market) such as MSME, agritech, and education. The Company is backed by marquee investors such as Coinbase Global Inc., Better Capital and Blume Founders Fund. The Company recently acquired the business of Tutelar, a full-stack AI-enabled risk management solutions business.

Chennai Fintech IppoPay Acquires Tutelar, An AI-based Risk Management Startup

Verticalised payments infrastructure startup IppoPay announced that it is acquiring the business of Tutelar, a full-stack AI-based Risk Management Company.

Tutelar builds products for real-time KYC and transaction fraud detection and risk management at every level of the payments value chain. The company enables risk-free onboarding, dispute resolutions, KYC fraud detection, transaction fraud detection, mis-selling prevention, etc benefiting not only the principals such as merchants and banks but also the intermediaries such as PA-PGs, issuers and fintechs and the TSPs such as payments processors and switch networks.

Mohan K, CEO of IppoPay said “Tutelar is our first and very important addition to the full-suite infra-stack that IppoPay is building. KYC and transaction fraud detection and risk management is a very critical problem that RBI, NPCI and the industry at large are trying to address. Addition of Tutelar makes IppoPay an important constituent in the fight against fraud in the payments space. We are also pleased to welcome Pradeep Kumar, founder of Tutelar and former CEO of Aggrepay to the IppoPay family as our risk specialist adding depth to our senior management bandwidth."

Pradeep Founder/CEO of Tutelar said “We built Tutelar with a vision to improve reporting and control of payments fraud across industries and mis-selling especially affecting banks and financial intermediaries. We wanted to partner with someone who will help us build on this vision and will take this product global. We believe IppoPay is the right home for Tutelar and they have the chops to help us achieve our vision.”

IppoPay is a verticalised payments solutions company providing payment infrastructure to small businesses in Tier-3 to 6 towns, and other large TAM (Total Addressable Market) business segments with unique needs such as education and agri-tech. The Company has over 1,70,000+ MSME merchants in Tamil Nadu. Recently IppoPay brought on-board a senior payments veteran Atish Shelar with 2 decades experience in payments space across HDFC Bank, Billdesk and M2P. The Company is invested into by Coinbase Global Inc., Better Capital and Blume Founders Fund.

NPCI Approved IppoPay Launches Tamil Nadu’s 1st UPI App to Help Offline Retail Businesses Receive UPI Payments

Clocked in transactions worth Rs 1000 crores

IppoPay is soon to roll out Tap to Phone and Payout services

Mumbai, May 24 , 2021: IppoPay is a Chennai-based Fintech startup that provides payment solutions to Small businesses, SMEs, and Freelancers. The company has launched Tamil Nadu’s first UPI App to help offline retail businesses receive payments through UPI. IppoPay was launched in September 2020 with its first beta version and from then now around 1000 crores worth of transactions were processed using their payment gateway.

Ippo Pay is a payment aggregator for businesses that collect and accept payments from their customers using Payment links, Invoice, Subscription, Social Commerce, and UPI. They target small businesses, retail stores, freelancers, homepreneurs, and people who do business in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities & in rural areas.

IppoPay launched its store app to start accept/collect payments for all offline businesses. They are a B2B service provider that offers static QR codes for merchants to start accepting payments. In India, by one year IppoPay’s QR code will be placed across Tier-2, Tier-3, and Rural store outlets. In their app, the complete transaction records, ledger, POS (Point-Of-Sale terminal) of the merchant’s store that includes inventory, customer details, transaction reports get maintained. By this, their merchants don't need to approach any third-party software/app for all these services. They have cash record options in their application that helps to manage the complete inventory transactions between the merchant and the customer, followed by providing the static and dynamic QR codes. Using the dynamic QR code, you can define the respective amount for the customer and send it as a link to them across different social mediums. Customers from any UPI app (Google pay, Phone pe, Paytm, Amazon Pay, Mobikwik, Apple Pay, WhatsApp Pay) can pay for the merchants who use the IppoPay QR code. They accept all the bank cards for payments.

Mr Mohan K CEO, Ippo Pay says - 

COVID-19 has changed the way we shop in offline retail business. There is a need to avail UPI payments in every retail shop. Even small kirana stores have started delivering items, and so IppoPay helps them to collect UPI payment via shared dynamic QR code also featuring card payments via contactless tap-to-phone technology and the recording of cash payments. They provide complete payment solutions to offline businesses. Our app can be used by a street merchant, as well as large brands. They can generate dynamic QR code and share it on WhatsApp or SMS to collect UPI payments and we our primary focus is on bringing all the offline businesses to start accepting payments.

Mr Sourabh Tomar, Head- UPI; IMPS Product, NPCI said, 

We are happy to partner with IppoPay to onboard the massive merchant network of Tamil Nadu into UPI platform. This initiative will provide significant access to the digital payment ecosystem where they can accept payments seamlessly through UPI. We are also glad that UPI is increasingly becoming an integral part of businesses of all sizes across the country.

IppoPay’s short term goal is to reach out to 10 lakh offline merchants by 2022. So, they have it all!

Standout Features of the App:

• Instant Friction-less Settlements
• On-priority merchant support in the language known to you is of paramount importance.
• 0% Transaction Charges and a free Set-Up.
• Dynamic-QR, helps you share a dynamic QR code with your customer on any platform for the amount you need to be paid.
• Payment Links can be generated and shared to receive payments.
• e-POS, manages all your inventory, sales, marketing, revenue billing system and payment acceptance across different payment mediums.
• Digital Ledger(Khata), gives you the list of all customer-specific transaction details with timestamps.
• Supports offline retail shops, micro businesses, freelancers, women homepreneurs and street vendors.
• Record the receipt of offline cash and card payments.
• Digital Receipt helps customer keep their transaction history forever in their mail or SMS

Buyofuel and IppoPay Startups from AIC Raise Incubator are among the Final Winners of TANSEED by Govt of Tamil Nadu

COIMBATORE, India, Feb. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ippo Pay and Buyofuel, two startups incubated under the AIC Raise supported by Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, are among the final ten winner startups in the Tamil Nadu Seed Grant Fund (TANSEED). This year's pitching saw an application of 1399 startups. 35 startups were shortlisted to go through intense boot camps and pitches, where 20 startups pitched in the finals to win. AIC Raise had four startups among the 35 shortlisted startups and three among the 20 startups that were selected for the final pitching. Of these 20 finalists, 2 startups, Ippo Pay and Buyofuel, emerged among the 10 winners on 14 February 2020. The winners carry the proud title along with the grant of Rs.10 Lakh each.

The Tamil Nadu Startup Seed Grant Fund (TANSEED) 2021 challenge is organized by The Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation Institute, Tamil Nadu (EDII-TN), the nodal agency implementing various initiatives to promote innovation and startup ecosystem, in association with Headstart Network Foundation.

The event was a three-day Bootcamp which consisted of one-on-one sessions by the teams with mentors. The teams then created and submitted pitch decks that were shortlisted for the final pitchfest. The shortlisted startups then presented their business in the pitch challenge, after which 10 teams were awarded a grant of Rs 10 lakh each to take their startups forward with support from StartupTN.

Speaking after the announcement, Mr. Mohan K, the founder of IppoPay and Mr. Kishan, the founder of Buyofuel, were delighted to be among the top 10 startup winners of this TANSEED edition.

"In our pitch, it is the collective effort from all that enabled us to be selected in in the top 10 TANSEED winners. After an elaborate and professional screening process we look forward to the worth of this achievement. We will work more harder and with more vigour to make Tamil Nadu, India and the world a better place," said Kishan, CEO, Buyofuel.

In addition Mr Kishan, CEO of Buyofuel echoed the continuous support the team has been receiving from AIC Raise.

"Buyofuel is incubated at AIC Raise and AIC Raise gives us constant updates on various grants and seed fund challenges. As a part of this, they sent us the application for TANSEED. The good part about AIC Raise is that they understand that entrepreneurs get stuck in their operations and so they continuously follow us up and get us to apply to most, if not all events happening around the world. The TANSEED Bootcamp and the sessions coupled with continuous guidance and feedback from AIC Raise and Headstart ensured that our pitch deck, more importantly the story and business of Buyofuel came out much more strongly. We are grateful," added Kishan, CEO, Buyofuel.

"This was our second-year entry, last year we were not among the finalists. We were a little sad that we did not get that but we are the people who never give up. We focus on working hard. We were confident enough to apply this year again because we have good traction and growth. The juries asked what the USP for IppoPay is compared to our competitors. There are no USPs at the moment and our main focus for 2021 is to position our startup into the market. We will come up with USP next. Our mission is to bring digital payment transformation to the entire Tamil Nadu in 2021," said Mohan, CEO, IppoPay.

"Much proud to be part of AIC Raise as a startup incubator and sharing the pleasure that our portfolio startups are getting recognized, this will encourage more aspiring entrepreneurs to start their dream ventures through us. We are always on a mission on supporting startups and innovators working Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and TANSEED helped us to validate the programs that we do at AIC Raise," said Ebin Ephrem Elavathingal, Senior Manager, AIC Raise.

The state launched the Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Policy 2018-23 in January 2019 and has organized the Tamil Nadu Innovation Grand Challenge (TNIGC) for the last three years. TNIGC has had three cohorts with a total of 16 startups awarded a seed grant of Rs 5 lakh per startup. The addition of the ten startups from this year's cohort brings the number to 26 startups to date.

About AIC Raise:

AIC Raise, supported by Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog, Govt. of India, is India's first Startup Incubation Centre focusing on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals established by Rathinam Group of Institutions. AIC Raise is creating a holistic ecosystem for social start-ups for maximizing profits and benefits to society and the environment.

AIC Raise encourages and backups innovative startups with suitable physical infrastructure in terms of capital equipment and operating facilities, key domain knowledge support, coupled with the availability of sectoral experts for mentoring, business planning support, access to seed capital, market information, management, business strategy, industry partners, training as well as critical networking.

https://aicraise.com

Details about startups : https://aicraise.com/our-startups/

About IppoPay

IppoPay is a startup that provides Payment Solutions to Small businesses, SMEs, and Freelancers. They are a Payment Aggregator for businesses that collect and accept payments from their customers using Payment links, Invoice, Subscription, Social Commerce, and UPI. They target businesses, freelancers, homeprenures, and people who do business in Tier 2 and 3 cities, and rural areas. They have had traction of over 200 merchants signed up (50 active transaction merchants), Transactions worth 18 Crores, and BETA Mode: Transactions worth 1 Crore during September and October. In November they reached 16 Crores transaction value,32 Crores transaction value in December, and 91 Crores in January 2021. IppoPay projects to reach transactions worth 100 Crores in the next 5 months.

https://www.ippopay.com

About Buyofuel

The primary vision behind Buyofuel is to create an empowering platform for trading Biofuel-based commodities in a quick and secure manner, providing a nurturing platform with verified buyers and sellers. It is India's most favorite Greenfuel Marketplace.