1) what was the idea that motivated you to start the company?
Despite many efforts towards financial inclusion, many MSMEs still find them short of qualification criteria set by banks and NBFCs. The founding team at Cashinvoice thought this problem can be effectively solved using the Supply Chain Finance approach. SCF when implemented in true spirit can remove the necessity of financial documentation and help MSMEs in getting the funds they need for their business. Our goal is mainstreaming 1,00,000 such MSMEs over the next 5 years by meeting their working capital requirements.
2) How has the company fared in the market? How has it revolutionized it?
Cashinvoice started its platform operations in Mid 2019. Since that time, we have onboarded thousands of MSMEs on our platform in a completely paperless manner. Within the short span of time, we have processed over 700,000 transactions accumulating to Rs. 3000 Cr. We are now positioned as India’s leading Supply Chain Finance provider. Our focus on digitalisation and automation has helped us define how MSMEs are funded on time and as per their requirement.
3) How has your corporate experience relevant and helped you fare so well?
4) How has AI transformed your game and helped you? On what lines would you want to use it further in the company?
Cashinvoice has focused on alternate data points in addition to the conventional bank assessment processes. These alternate data points give more weightage to the softer aspects of the business such as length of the relationship, transaction history, social and compliance history which compensates for the lack of formal financial documentation. This is possible because of the AI engine we have built that processes thousands of data points and assign a dynamic score to arrive at eligibility. We want to bolster our AI-based rule engine by adding Machine Learning Capabilities that would update every time there is a change in the data points related to a particular entity. We believe in a few years’ time the credit assessment decision, especially within the SCF domain can be made completely autonomous with help of such technologies.
5) What has been your strategy to brave the hurdles in the industry due to the pandemic?
Cashinvoice has heavily relied on digital sourcing, onboarding, and transaction process right from inception. But pandemics accelerated that process by multiple times. We have since integrated our platform with various public and private API service providers to ensure that the entire process right from the lead sourcing to onboarding and from limit approval to disbursement is completely paperless. We have launched a first of its kind mobile application that allows ‘Anytime. Anywhere.’ Access to our services. The team at Cashinvoice has taken up this challenge collectively and we take pride every time we implement a complex project well within the timelines while working remotely from various locations.
6) How have the current government policies like GST supported your business and its environment?
Many recent government policies have been tremendously helpful in enabling financial inclusion of the MSMEs through Fintechs like Cashinvoice. GSTN is a revolutionary data source and it has redefined the way Financial Institutions assess small businesses. Likewise, other initiatives such as e-way bills and e-invoicing have the potential to solve major hurdles in Supply Chain Finance. We are striving to harness these enablers and reimagine the way we provide access to the working capital to our customers.
7) What makes your product different from its competitors?
Cashinvoice takes pride in our unique positioning as an end-to-end Supply Chain Finance provider. We have helped fund every link within the Supply Chain in a digitalised, paperless manner for our Corporate clients. A lot of it emanates from our modern technology stack which allows us to integrate our solutions seamlessly with other source systems such as ERPs. We are building one of the largest networks of corporate Buyers, Suppliers, and Financiers which over a period of time will create multiple funding options for any of our customers.
8) What is the current vision of the company? On what lines would you like to expand?
We want to foray into products that meet requirements of each of the Supply Chain participants. Our endeavour is to constantly innovate ourselves so that we have a product offerings for every industry and every kind of business. Cashinvoice already has a wide product offering today but we want to expand it further so that we can meet specific requirements of our corporate and SME customers. We are aiming to grow 4X this year with a focus on digital adoption and broadening our network of our participants.
