Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#1

Post by dang » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

Here's the fourth "Meet the Batch" thread - previous one was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28049500. I've given in on titles (per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28049881 and sundry others).

There are 9 startups in this thread. The initial order is random:

GamerPay (YC S21) - Scam-free marketplace for gaming skins and assets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073552

Warrant (YC S21) - APIs for authorization and access control - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073557

Abhi (YC S21) - Pakistani fintech focused on Early Wage Access - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073555

Perfekto (YC S21) - Imperfect produce in Latin America - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073551

Chipax (YC S21) - Quickbooks for Latin America - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073556

Inai (YC S21) - Segment for global payments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073554

Titipku (YC S21) - Instacart for Indonesia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073549

Jestor (YC S21) - Tool-builder for COOs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073550

Nino Foods (YC S21) - Cloud Kitchens in India - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28073553

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#2

Post by ongtektjan » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

We are building Titipku (https://titipku.com/) which is "Instacart" for local markets in Indonesia, where we help households to buy daily groceries from nearby local markets in their residence areas. The Covid 19 has made people unable to buy their daily needs from local markets, meanwhile merchants in local markets are also suffering and need help to sell their goods. We solved this by helping to on board all merchants in every local market in our application, households can make an order in a few minutes, and there are personal shoppers who will go to the local market, buy the order and deliver to buyers. For example a household in Kelapa Gading Jakarta can make an order to buy many products from many merchants in Mandiri Market Kelapa Gading as one single order, then Titipku will assign the order to a personal shopper who will serve the order until delivery to the buyer instantly.within 1 hour. You can see an intro video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b6SXH0BR-w. Happy to answer questions!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#3

Post by brunobannach » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

Hi HN, we are Bruno and Guilherme of Jestor (https://jestor.com/). We make a no-code tool for COOs that need to scale complex offline operations such as hospitals, hotels and kitchens.

At our previous company, a software development business, most of our clients asked us to build in-house tools like an "easy to use Salesforce" or a "lighter SAP" that would reflect their internal processes. They were tired of paying high prices for 20-year-old enterprise software that was slow and expensive to adapt to their operations. They would usually also say something along the lines of: "I don't want to depend on you guys, I need something that my operations team can adapt themselves". All of them were using some combination of spreadsheets and SAP/Salesforce, and were not happy. We decided to develop software to empower them to build their own tools for operations, thus killing our previous business.

We achieve this by providing essential functionality without code, and enabling more customized behaviors to be quickly implemented with basic scripting ("low-code"). We give operations teams a way of using relational databases, setting up permissioning rules, and creating dashboards, forms, tasks and automations. Low-code allows for customized behaviors and integrations such as customized UIs, which allows for applications to be run on top of our platform. Proptech companies are using Jestor to manage room cleaning operations (cleaners have a Jestor app on their phones and receive information about where they need to clean), and foodtech companies are using it for managing warehouses and logistics.

Most of our clients have field operations, like when a doctor visits a patient in their home, so everything we build is designed thinking of mobile use. For example, you can create no-code automations straight from your phone. Another thing that's really important is the ability to connect any data in your company, so you can choose to integrate data from multiple teams in Jestor.

We never liked the pay-per-seats pricing model, so in Jestor, so we only charge based on usage. We believe it's much fairer to pay according to the value we generate for the user, instead of their "team size". Also, the more people using Jestor the better it gets. We're very pumped to be here and looking forward to hear what you think! Please leave us your feedback, including criticism so we can improve!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#4

Post by jheinvirta » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

We are Jan and Anahi of Perfekto (https://www.perfekto.mx/). We offer imperfect produce in Latin America, helping to reduce food waste as otherwise the food would be thrown away. We offer a subscription box, delivered to your doorstep. We started with fruits and veggies as 54% of them are wasted in Latin America, mainly due to two reasons: strict industry standards around aesthetics (too ugly, too small, too big, bruised, etc.) and inefficient supply chains (supply and demand mismatch, several intermediaries, no cold chains etc.). Meanwhile 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions result from food waste, and food demand is growing significantly.

I was working for a Swiss FinTech in Mexico City, but was not happy. I wanted to build something with a positive, sustainable impact. The food waste problem popped into my mind because growing up in a Swiss farming village and having worked as a waiter during my studies, I saw the effort in producing food and the amount of food we waste daily. I also realized there were not many people addressing the problem in Latin America. Further research showed that more than 1/3 of food in the region is being wasted. During that process I met Anahí, who started her career at Unilever and the past few years at Uber, where she led Grocery and Cornershop initiatives. Her father is a citrus producer so she was confronted with the problem of food waste pretty much her entire life and also wanted to do something about it.

We buy fruits and veggies from producers that otherwise are difficult or impossible for them to sell - the only standard is that they have to be fresh. We thereby create a market for these 'overlooked' products. Producers are not even offering imperfect products anymore because they think there is no market for it. When we approach them wanting to buy imperfect products they are surprised and distrust us. It takes some time for them to open up. Meanwhile, at least in Latin America, many people don't seem to know that this problem even exists. They don't know that so much food is being wasted for stupid reasons like shape or size and it blows their mind.

By sourcing our products directly from producers we shorten the supply chain. We maintain a cool temperature, which leads to less waste. We only buy seasonal and local produce to be as sustainable as possible. Thanks to the subscription model, we can match supply and demand to avoid over-buying stock that ends up wasted. This allows us to optimize logistics. Logistics is definitely the most complex thing about our business--it affects us across the board. For now we think we have figured out a good model to grow, but it will be interesting to see what happens and what will change as we become bigger!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#5

Post by martinlykkesuhr » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

GamerPay (https://gamerpay.gg/) is a scam-free marketplace for gaming skins and assets.

46% of gamers trading skins have been scammed more than once for either their money or their skins (survey of 5,000 gamers). 50% of gamers are under 18 and this their first online trading/cash experience. We solve this problem by integrating with Steam and making use of escrow, validating all trades. We are regulated by European Financial Services, and have a compliant way of onboarding minors, with parental consent.

I am the owner of Scandinavia's largest Counter-Strike community, with 82k members. Not a day goes by where I am not contacted by young people who lost their money buying and selling skins. They often get depressed, either because they lost a lot of money, or because it was part of their identity. In one case, a young guy lost all the money he had received from his confirmation, roughly 5000 dollars. He was ashamed and afraid to tell his family and friends. In another case, one that really got to me, a 17 year old was persuaded to give his ID to "prove his legitimacy" in a trade. The scammer saved the picture with him holding his ID, then created a fake profile and scammed hundreds of others, getting the 17-year old in trouble with the police and attacked on social media.

We did extensive surveys, found that this is a surprisingly big problem (the gaming market is of course huge) and decided that something needed to be done. Current solutions were obscure, too expensive, or unavailable due to region or age.

Example of how it works with us: a young gamer from the UK meets a US gamer on Discord or Reddit. The US buyer agrees to buy the UK seller's item. They go to GamerPay where the US buyer pays for the item. We hold the money in escrow until it's validated that the UK seller has transferred the exact item. The UK seller receives the cash on to their bank account. There is no risk in who "goes first" with the money or skin. We charge a straightforward transaction fee of 5%.

One nice thing is that for the first time, safe cross-border trades are now available. We have seen sellers from Denmark (where we're from) connect with buyers from the US. We have also seen our first seller doing 100 trades in less than 6 weeks on our marketplace. We look forward to hearing your feedback!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#6

Post by nishantnino » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

Hi we're Nishant and Pranav of Nino Foods, which creates and operates cloud kitchen brands in India focused on the premium market. Food Delivery in India has an average order value (AOV) of 4$ vs the U.S which is >30$. This makes it hard to run a profitable food delivery business In India. Our brands target the customers in India that order food above 7$ - which accounts for 50% of industry revenues and a majority of industry profits. This segment has 2.5 times more profitability, and stickier customers with higher expectations.

We launched 11 months ago by acquiring a Pizza chain in Mumbai-Francesco's Pizzeria, which had closed 5 out of its 6 restaurant locations and was running on fumes because of covid. We acquired the 1 active location along with the brand rights and converted it to delivery only. We set up a new brand-Nino Burgers , mostly to prove to ourselves that we could build a successful food brand from scratch.

We use hyperlocal data like - unfulfilled search engine queries on delivery platforms, highest selling menu items in nearby restaurants and highest selling toppings - to drive menu and pricing decisions. In the last 11 months we've understood how to grow sales on delivery platforms and we have designed kitchen layout, operations and SOP's to improve metrics that drive visibility on them.

Contrary to the negative sentiment shared by lots of restaurants in India toward platforms because of their 25% take rate - we have a Pro-Swiggy/Zomato attitude . These platforms make 3 times more money on orders through us than via brands with lower average order values. This aligns our incentives with them and gives us access to better data to grow and lower commission rates. Nonetheless, We still do 20% of our business via our direct channel which helps us understand customer preferences deeper and track loyalty.

We want to build category leading brands in food. A person orders food delivery 5 times a month in India. Our aim is for 4 out of those 5 orders to be coming from one of our brands.

https://linktr.ee/ninofoods has our instagram pages and an ordering website. We'd love to hear any thoughts, feedback and curiosities!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#7

Post by anta81 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

We are Anta and Karthik of Inai (https://www.inai.io/), a platform for setting up and operating your payment stack. We let you offer local payment methods, support multiple business models (e-commerce, subscriptions , platforms) and localise the checkout experience by region of operation.

Setting up and maintaining a payment stack, especially if you operate in multiple regions, takes months of developer time. Most merchants set up their stacks ad hoc, leading to loss of revenue (e.g. if you don't display Apple Pay in a certain way at checkout, Apple will penalize; same for Paypal) and wasted admin time (multiple dashboards for refunds, coupons etc). Working with a single payment provider locks the merchant in, as customer data is vaulted with the Payment Service Provider (PSP) making switching difficult. Meanwhile customer payment methods are exploding with newer rails like BNPLs (Buy Now Pay Later), open banking, QR code based and even crypto emerging rapidly

Karthik and I previously ran a DTC fitness business. Tailoring the payment stack to each market that we expanded into was a big pain. We spent weeks on every payment integration and our payment stack was a mess. We were after all running a fitness business and not a payments one.

At Inai, we provide a single unified API that connects to multiple payment providers (Stripe, Braintree), alternate payment methods (wallets, BNPLs etc). We make it easy to launch into new markets and to keep your service agnostic of PSP. For B2B companies, we make it easy to allow your customers to send invoice links and accept payments across cards and ACH.

We plan to give merchants a IFTTT dashboard to set up custom business logic (e.g. show Klarna, SOFORT, and cards in Germany but cards, Paypal, and Apple Pay in US). Merchants can view all transactions across providers, and very shortly will be able to manage chargebacks, refunds, and coupons, and get analytics on transactions (e.g. success rates by card/PSP, insights on why transactions were declined).

Payment orchestration as a concept is not new, but medium sized merchants were not being served well with the existing solutions. We found that many merchants in this category had a knowledge gap with respect to payments and therefore needed someone to hand-hold and deliver outcomes for them, so fixing this is what we are focussed on.

We are building this product for merchants so if you have a use case that is currently not being served by our product, we would love to hear from you. Your problems and pain points will drive our roadmap.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#8

Post by aladhubhai » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

We are Ali and Omair of Abhi (http://abhi.com.pk/). We are a financial wellness platform in Pakistan, focusing on providing early wage access to the salaried class.

Most employees in Pakistan live paycheck to paycheck, not having savings for emergencies or random bills. Many pay their bills late, as payroll disbursement often does not coincide with bill cycles, incurring hefty payment fees. Fewer than 20% of the population have access to formal credit; banks are stringent in their underwriting and have not been focused on consumer lending due to high returns on treasury investments. In a population of 220M, consumer finance products have a total value of less than $3.5B. Meanwhile the total value of monthly payroll processed in Pakistan is between $6B and $8B. Without access to credit, people turn to friends and family, try to get advances from their employer, or resort to loan sharks.

The idea for Abhi came from first hand experience of constantly being asked for money by friends and family and speaking to companies on how often they have seen requests for salary advances. We also have seen how it takes over 45 days to get a loan from a bank or get approved for a credit card. My cofounder Omair, who was working at Morgan Stanley, had also been studying the early wage access model around the world and the uptake it had in emerging markets. After running a small pilot with 400 employees, we decided to work on a B2B2C model to provide advances to consumers via their employers to reduce delinquency risk.

We partner with employers to offer financial well-being benefits that improve retention, productivity and employee engagement. Our mission is to help millions of people across Pakistan live healthier, happier financial lives. We do this by offering: access to their salary as it is earned; affordable advances; and engaging financial education. In surveys we have found employees using these funds for utility bills, home maintenance, fixing their vehicles, medical expenses, and weddings.

We provide instant access to earned wages to all employees of any company that has signed on with us, without the need for any documentation. We allow this through 4 touch points: a mobile app, 2 way SMS, WhatsApp, and a web portal. The funds get sent to the employee within a minute, to their existing payroll account held in any bank or mobile wallet in Pakistan. We also provide advances when needed, for which we charge a flat 2% transaction fee. These are collected on the next payroll, eliminating late fees and loan shark interest rates.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#9

Post by Felipe_Urzua » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

Hello HN! We are Antonio, Felipe, Joaquin and Francois, founders of Chipax (https://www.chipax.com/). We are helping SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) in Latin America handle their finances. Chipax is self-serve online software that works with real-time data collection from the IRS and banks. We all know how painful and time consuming it is to manage finances and keep payables and receivables up to date. So we are shortening this gap with technology.

We got started in 2015 when our friend's business was about to go bankrupt. He asked us for help. Antonio used spreadsheets to figure what was really happening; their finances were a mess. These spreadsheets did the work, but they quickly became really hard to maintain and existing software solutions made the problem even worse.

We turned those spreadsheets into a web app to make it easier to work with. We shared the web app with some friends and then we realized this was a very common problem among SMBs, so we decided to found Chipax. Right now, we have >1000 paying customers between Chile and Mexico.

We focus on cash flow, the heart of the SMB. We sync invoices and bills, tax and bank records so you can reconcile and get AR and AP reports accurately faster. We automatically categorize invoices and bills to get simple yet powerful P&L reports to track company or project numbers. We automate reporting on what’s most important: cash flow, income statement, debts payable, etc. Our customers are not looking for complex solutions, robust AI models or overly advanced technologies. They simply want to know how their business is doing and have peace of mind to operate it.

We are very excited to be at this point, we have been reading HN for years. We’d love to speak to any of you that are curious about what we’re doing or if you have any ideas/challenges for us!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #4

#10

Post by kkajla » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

We’re Aditya and Karan, the co-founders of Warrant (https://warrant.dev/). We build APIs and infrastructure to help developers implement authorization and access control in their apps.

Implementing flexible authorization that grows with your application is difficult. Many products only need authentication early on but eventually require authorization; however, adding complex authorization to a mature, high usage product is even harder. We’re building Warrant to better abstract the complexity of authorization and reduce implementation cost and maintenance drag for engineering teams.

Warrant abstracts your authorization rules and access control logic outside of your application so it isn’t coupled to core business logic. We adopted concepts from Google Zanzibar to make Warrant flexible enough to support any access control model. Authorization rules are easy to enforce in backend and frontend code at runtime through simple API calls. Both developers and non-technical users can modify access rules through our dashboard to change application behavior without needing to change code.

We’re taking a service-driven approach to authorization. As companies get bigger and build out multiple services, authorization logic needs to be re-implemented in the new services or some central service. Whether you’re a small startup with a monolith or a company with many microservices, we think decoupling your authorization and having a dedicated authorization service is the right approach. Check out our demo app (https://github.com/warrant-dev/warrant-demo-app-ts) for an end-to-end example of how to use Warrant.