As a small-time exporter, Mahavir Jain needed to make umpteen visits to his financial institution each time he needed to ship a cargo overseas. There have been varieties to be crammed up, charges to be paid, LoC to be issued, overseas change charges to be negotiated and finalised, et al. It appeared as if he was spending extra time and power finishing the paperwork than closing the export deal. It was then that he received to learn about EximPe. “Earlier, my entire trade business was manual and paper-based. Thanks to EximPe, I conduct all of my cross-border transactions while sitting in the comfort of my office and save 8-10 hours/month,” says Jain from the Laxman Group.
EximPe, began in 2021, is a platform that helps SMEs make cross-border funds and cling to compliance norms by offering a completely paperless digital course of for inbound and outbound remittances. The digitised workflows it provides utilizing know-how allows Indian corporations to compete within the world market. Over 1,000 SMEs have already signed up with EximPe, and lots of extra are on the ready listing.
“EximPe was inspired by my experience of building a $10-million cross-border business on the India-Southeast Asia-China trade corridor and the inefficiencies I faced during the process,” says Arjun Abraham Zacharia, its founder.Prior to founding EximPe, the serial entrepreneur had constructed India’s first social commerce platform, Wooplr, and scaled it to $50 million GMV with operations unfold throughout India, China and Southeast Asia.
He factors out that for many years, exporters and importers have needed to pay excessive charges to banks, which cost a median payment of 2-3%, and typically as a lot as 10%. “Normally, if a trader does a transaction of $5,000, the bank charges a commission of at least $100. However, if the trader negotiates then the fee can be reduced by the bank. This indicates that there is no actual regulation or policy in place regarding how much commission or fee a bank should be charging traders per transaction,” he says.
Given that SMEs have small however frequent orders, this not solely makes them spend some huge cash on a number of transactions but additionally renders the entire ecosystem non-transparent in nature. “SMEs, especially the ones just starting out, are not aware of the compliances necessary for cross-border payments, like BOE (Bill of Exchange) regularisation for imports and exports, which, if not done for every payment, can even lead to the trader getting blacklisted. Also, this compliance process is manual- and paper-heavy, adding to the pains of running a business,” factors out Zacharia.
Agrees MM Huzeifa, proprietor of Huzeifa Imports: “I am a small merchant that imports machinery; I save over Rs 15,000 per month thanks to the best rates I find on EximPe.”
EximPe’s major focus for now could be on increasing its buyer base. The worth of the transactions on the platform varies from $5,000 to $50,000. “We are fine-tuning the process before deploying it for a bigger customer base. The company has already crossed the $20-million TPV (Total Payment Volume) run rate and is poised to cross the $100-million TPV run rate by the end of 2022,” says Zacharia. “While we’re putting a lot of emphasis on unit economics, it’s still too early to talk about breaking even. The company’s current priority is to increase its customer base and TPV. We will generate money in the future via transaction fees and financial offerings.”
The startup has thus far raised $3.5 million in a seed funding spherical anchored by Leo Capital, which additionally noticed participation from different VC corporations like RB Investments, Founder Bank Capital, iSeed Ventures, 2am VC, LetsVenture and BoldCap. Angel traders like Kunal Shah, founder, Cred; Rajesh Raju, managing director, Kalaari Capital; Alex Wehr, accomplice, Firestartr.vc; and Aprameya Radhakrishnan, co-founder and CEO, Koo have additionally invested within the cross-border funds startup.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”