Gurgaon-based MyPoolin Acquired By US Payment Firm Wibmo For $1 Million

US-based digital payment company Wibmo Inc has bought Gurgaon-based mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) payment solution startup Mypoolin in a cash and stock deal valued above $1 million. Post this acquisition, all existing investors will get a combination of stock and cash, and Mypoolin will continue to operate as an Indian subsidiary of Wibmo, but eventually the startup will be integrated with the Wibmo. The founders will join Wibmo’s India office, reported LiveMint.

Notably in 2015, MyPoolin received $250,000 of convertible funding as a winner of Qualcomm Ventures' QPrize competition and Accel Partners was one of the backers in that, who had also invested in Wibmo’s Series-A round in 2009, when Wibmo was called enStage. In the same year, MyPoolin had raised undisclosed amount of seed funding from Google India Managing Director Rajan Anandan and other tech entrepreneurs and investors such as Amit Ranjan, Sharad Sharma and Sunil Kalra.

Launched in 2015 by Rohit Taneja (IIT Delhi) and Ankit Singh (FMS Delhi), Mypoolin is a mobile P2P and group payments application. It utilizes UPI (Unified Payment Interface) to collect and settle daily expenses with friends. A user can also plan and pay together for use cases such as group-gifting, movies, vacations, concerts, events, and parties. The startup recently launched its chat-bot app that allows peer-to-peer payments to anyone in your contact list, which is currently active on Messenger, Slack and Telegram.

Speaking about Wibmo, the company already has a B2B presence in India and claims to work with private banks in India. The US company plans to use Mypoolin acquisition for expanding its consumer base. Wibmo offers ecommerce authentication services, online mobile payments, payment gateways, and recharge and bill payment services.

“Mypoolin is a very strong technology company in the bank account-based payment space in India. With UPI and Aadhaar-based market leading solutions in this rapidly growing segment, Mypoolin expands our offering in consumer payments and opens up some very exciting opportunities,” Wibmo CEO Govind Setlur told to a business daily.

This is second Indian startup acquisition within a span of just two days as on Monday UK-based firm Page Solutions acquired Mumbai-based blockchain startup Aetlo Tech for undisclosed amount.

Top Image - bwdisrupt.businessworld.in

Gurgaon-based MyPoolin Acquired By US Payment Firm Wibmo For $1 Million

US-based digital payment company Wibmo Inc has bought Gurgaon-based mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) payment solution startup Mypoolin in a cash and stock deal valued above $1 million. Post this acquisition, all existing investors will get a combination of stock and cash, and Mypoolin will continue to operate as an Indian subsidiary of Wibmo, but eventually the startup will be integrated with the Wibmo. The founders will join Wibmo’s India office, reported LiveMint.

Notably in 2015, MyPoolin received $250,000 of convertible funding as a winner of Qualcomm Ventures' QPrize competition and Accel Partners was one of the backers in that, who had also invested in Wibmo’s Series-A round in 2009, when Wibmo was called enStage. In the same year, MyPoolin had raised undisclosed amount of seed funding from Google India Managing Director Rajan Anandan and other tech entrepreneurs and investors such as Amit Ranjan, Sharad Sharma and Sunil Kalra.

Launched in 2015 by Rohit Taneja (IIT Delhi) and Ankit Singh (FMS Delhi), Mypoolin is a mobile P2P and group payments application. It utilizes UPI (Unified Payment Interface) to collect and settle daily expenses with friends. A user can also plan and pay together for use cases such as group-gifting, movies, vacations, concerts, events, and parties. The startup recently launched its chat-bot app that allows peer-to-peer payments to anyone in your contact list, which is currently active on Messenger, Slack and Telegram.

Speaking about Wibmo, the company already has a B2B presence in India and claims to work with private banks in India. The US company plans to use Mypoolin acquisition for expanding its consumer base. Wibmo offers ecommerce authentication services, online mobile payments, payment gateways, and recharge and bill payment services.

“Mypoolin is a very strong technology company in the bank account-based payment space in India. With UPI and Aadhaar-based market leading solutions in this rapidly growing segment, Mypoolin expands our offering in consumer payments and opens up some very exciting opportunities,” Wibmo CEO Govind Setlur told to a business daily.

This is second Indian startup acquisition within a span of just two days as on Monday UK-based firm Page Solutions acquired Mumbai-based blockchain startup Aetlo Tech for undisclosed amount.

Top Image - bwdisrupt.businessworld.in

Delhi Startup Mypoolin Solves The Problem Of Money Collection From Friends, Family Or Anyone

Founded in Delhi in 2014 by Ankit Singh and Rohit Taneja, Mypoolin.com is probably the smartest way for collecting money in a group. The organization solves the problem of money collection (and settling) in a group for various use cases like group -gifting, traveling together, and attending parties/events as a group and even social mini-projects. You can invite along your friends, family or anyone to form a pool.

"They are in the business of payment aggregation and splitting and help in fast and convenient collection (and settling) of money among friends, or colleagues. Within the first 2 weeks of launch, they saw pools of over INR 50,000 being formed by users for corporate parties, gifts for college buddies and weekend getaways.

Rohit, who is IIT-Delhi alumnus, primarily looks after the design and user experiences (UX designs) at the company. With a prior work experience in Sony as a product designer, he gives an insight into his venture saying "We use proprietary algorithms for product/event recommendation and CakePHP application. Made as an API for B2B2C plugins, it is compatible with all major platforms. Also, an android app is on its way to go a step beyond and make payment settlement and collection social and as friction-less and seamless as possible."

[caption id="attachment_97766" align="aligncenter" width="700"] MyPoolin Core Team[/caption]

With an MBA degree from FMS-Delhi, Ankit handles the business end with focus on strategy and marketing for the company. Prior to setting this up, he has worked in Procter & Gamble and Intuit. He says "We have B2B plugin partners such as Gitanjali - Jewelsouk, Peppercloset, Exotic India Art where we power group gifting of gift vouchers and products. We are also coming up soon on YepME, Jabong, Cox & Kings and other major sites. We have also partnered with crowd funding websites such as Catapooolt for accelerating campaign donations and are soon coming up on milaap.org. Meanwhile, our users keep surprising us with the use-cases for which they use MyPoolin.com for collecting or settling money among their friends. Few of them are group gifting, group trips and movies/events."

The 3 easy steps you need to follow to get started: 'Put in the purpose and the target amount to get started with the pool'; 'Invite people and they contribute, all in a single click' & 'Once collected, get the money transferred to your account or redeem online'. That's it!

User invites friends to chip in money for a target amount via Facebook or E-mail. All invitees are directed to the site and can see who all have been invited for the event, how much has each invitee contributed and how much money has been collected. In case of group-gifting, order is placed only when the entire amount is collected or the group wants to cash out. Also, the amount is refunded in full in case the group event is cancelled.

Rohit adds "Currently we are in bootstrapped mode. The first 3 months were critical as we tried to soak in all the critical feedback and iterate the product. It was very exciting to develop something that has not been developed before from scratch. Also, it was crucial to remain lean and flexible during this period and focus on developing the product to solve the core pain point for the customers rather than providing multiple ‘nice to have’ features"

With a strong message for future entrepreneurs, Ankit says “Be bold to push out something new into the world but don't be arrogant. Be humble but don’t be timid. Most importantly, persevere and it always pays off one way or the other."