BalrajCRED, the member-only fintech and e-commerce platform, is planning to acquire Happay, a corporate expense management platform. Although the amount of the cash and stock transactions are not disclosed, CRED’s acquisition of Happay will be valued at $180 million, providing Happay investors with a profitable exit.
Illustration by Balraj, TechStory
CRED will be able to access the enterprise spending market as a result of the acquisition. In a press release, CRED noted, Happay will operate as a standalone entity, the team will work collaboratively with CRED leadership to use its ecosystem, develop distribution, expand the product portfolio, and drive scale.
CRED has been able to grow significantly in the last three years, said, Founder Kunal Shah in a media statement, by tackling the problem of credit card management. He went on to say that professional expense management was now a perfect solution for the company.
Happay is a corporate expense, payments, and travel management solutions platform founded in 2012 by Anshul Rai and Varun Rathi. It claims to track work-related expenses for more than 1 million customers globally, serving 6000+ firms, which include Dominos, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and OYO, handling over $3 billion in transactions every year. The company simplifies the spend management workflow, allowing its clients to manage costs, corporate cards, and corporate travel bookings from a single platform.
It guarantees compliance and visibility with an end-to-end audit trail, allowing it to create a strong proposition in a contactless, paperless finance landscape. Happay also offers a software framework and an in-house payment engine, which will strengthen CRED members’ card management experience. CRED members will be able to manage their personal expenses, while Happay’s credit card customers will be integrated under CRED’s banner as a result of the acquisition.
CRED previously bought HipBar, a Chennai-based liquor buying, and delivery startup, to expand into the neobanking fintech business. HipBar has a prepaid payment instrument license, as well as a non-banking financing company (NBFC) license obtained through a firm called NewTap Technologies.
The Bangalore-based fintech startup also launched Rent Pay, in early 2020, a service that allows users to pay their monthly rent with a credit card. Thereafter, it launched CRED Store, an e-commerce platform where customers could make purchases from Indian and international D2C brands as well as FMCG companies.
It also introduced its digital payment platform, which allows customers to use CRED reward coins when shopping and enjoy discounts on e-commerce stores. It has also recently invaded the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending space with CRED Mint, a community-driven offering. According to the startup, users would be able to earn interest on idle funds by lending to fellow high-trust members.