Instamojo now diversifies product portfolio, brings logistics and lending onto its platform
MSME digital payment service provider, Instamojo on Tuesday announced the diversification of its product portfolio by introducing logistics and credit to customers on its platform through the launch of its two new flagship products – MojoXpress and MojoCapital.
The extended product portfolio will help Instamojo merchants leverage its lending and logistics capabilities on the platform, unlike earlier where merchants had to rely on multiple vendors to provide these services to their customers.
Speaking to YourStory, Sampad Swain, Co-founder and CEO of Instamojo said that they have been piloting the new product line over the past three weeks. MojoXpress, which is essentially shipping services, is being provided in partnership with three partners- FedEx, Delhivery, as well as Ecom Express.
Sampad added that at present MojoXpress reaches 12,000 pincodes, and has plans to add more partnerships and reach as many as 19,000 pincodes in the coming months.
Once a merchant books a pick up and drop service, the nearest delivery partner is reported about the pick up and shipping. The average time taken for a pickup is two days with total delivery time stretching to a week.
The end cost for the service is automatically deducted from the payment which a merchant is due to receive.
The company is looking to build further capabilities on top of this to enable same day deliveries in the future.
MojoCapital will also help fulfill the growth-related financial requirements of the MSMEs. Under MojoCapital is Sachet Loans, which is micro credit given to MSMEs for regularising their cash flow and sustaining day-to-day operations.
When asked about the need for such a product, Sampad said that merchants on their platform needed instant cash and something more fungible than digital money.
Sachet loans are divided into 'Next Day Payout' and 'Instant Payout', which will allow merchants to receive their payments a day after the payment was made or an instant payout respectively, after the customer pays for the product and services.
Sampad explains,
“Like every other payment gateway, when a customer makes a payment to an Instamojo merchant, there is a lag of 48 hours from the issuing bank’s side to clear the transaction to the Instamojo account and another day’s lag to further the transaction from the Instamojo account to a customer’s account. Hence, Instant Payout helps customers to avail their due payments anytime.”
However, the higher limit of the loan is Rs 2 lakh currently, owing to the IMPS transaction limit on which the service rides. But Sampad says that merchants can do multiple such transactions, if they have more than Rs 2 lakh due in payments.
The credit amount is automatically deducted when settling the final payment due to the merchant on the platform.
At present, Instamojo has claimed to have partnered with 12 NBFCs and multiple banks to give out these loans. The company is also looking to launch more credit interesting products for the 500,000 MSMEs on its platform, in the coming months.
Looking at the present run rate, the company is confident that they will reach Rs 40 crores in credit disbursed over the next year.
The company is also looking to add new services around raw material sourcing, GST fling amongst other things for merchants using the Instamojo platform.
At present, the company has close to 12 people working on these products.
Founded in 2012 by Sampad Swain, Akash Gehani and Aditya Sengupta, Instamojo raised Pre-Series B funding from Japanese payments firm, AnyPay last year.
It is in the process to close its Series B funding, which is expected to be announced next month.
