Launch HN: Multis (YC S19): online business bank account for cryptocurrency

Hi HN,

We're Théophile and Thibaut, and we're building Multis (https://multis.co): an online bank account designed for companies holding cryptocurrency. We're helping them store it, spend it and earn interest.

We have been in this industry for the past 3 years. Thibaut used to lead sales at Stratumn, a Nasdaq-backed company helping companies securing their shared workflows through cryptocurrencies. Théo built several decentralized applications before starting the company in 2018.

Wallets are the cornerstone of the industry: you need them to store and transact with cryptocurrencies. But these wallets are not designed for business. You cannot perform simple business operations like running a payroll, paying vendors, or earning interest, which you can currently do from your modern business bank account.

Cryptocurrencies - and particularly stablecoins - are a reliable, fast and cost-efficient medium of exchange. It’s a technology that enables anyone to move value and assets across borders, with no intermediaries. We believe it can help companies save a lot, since most of them are now actively transacting with partners abroad, from suppliers to foreign contractors.

The number of companies building and transacting with cryptocurrencies is growing (e.g. Stateofthedapp listings grew by 250% since 2017), despite still being in its infancy. Most of these companies are operating in the cryptocurrency industry, or are e-merchants willing to reduce payment fees and optimize working capital.

These companies struggle to manage their assets and make the most of them. They typically have between 5 and 10 wallets, none of them being designed for a business environment. This makes business spending and accounting still to painful and time-consuming. And cryptocurrencies sit idle, because there are just too many frictions.

We realized what was really needed: an application to manage cryptocurrency the same as a modern online business bank account, with features and financial services powered by both crypto and traditional currencies. In short, a crypto-first bank. Here are our main features today:

- Store - multi-user wallet with dashboard and transaction history

- Pay - spending policies and streamlined payment flows (1)

- Exchange - swap 70+ tokens with ethers, dollars and euros (2)

- Earn - savings account yielding interest on stablecoins (3)

- Soon: EUR and USD bank accounts

We will make revenues through commissions on financial services like fiat ramps, and through monthly subscriptions for premium features like accounting exports or fiat accounts.

Our goal of making a unified front end that works like a business bank account is challenging to achieve because the technologies we're using are very heterogenous:

- we have two databases: the Ethereum blockchain and Cloud Firestore

- we have two backends: smart contracts and Firebase Cloud functions

- we have two authentication systems: private keys stored on individual wallets (we're self-custodian) and email addresses

- we have two authorization systems: the multisignature contract owners and the owner/guest roles in our security rules

- we have two type of assets: cryptogoods and traditional currencies

- we will have two storages: IPFS and Firebase Storage

You can read more here about our architecture (4) and our approach to security (5).

Cryptocurrency is still a recent technology that generates understandable skepticism.The ICO craze did not help. We feel that payment is becoming a tangible use case though, and companies ranging from Facebook to JP Morgan are now actively investing in it. We believe more will join. There are still many uncertainties about regulations, accounting, and each new SEC or FinCEN guidance make the teams' hair turn grey. But things are moving forward on the ground, despite the excess of hype in the space.

We want to make Multis useful, so we have one question: what would be the key features and financial services you would expect as a company? They don't have to be related to crypto directly. We'd also love your feedback, your questions and your ideas. Thanks!

(1) https://medium.com/multis/introducing-direct-transfers-a-new...

(2) https://medium.com/multis/multis-launches-first-token-swap-c...

(3) https://medium.com/multis/our-new-compound-integration-lets-...

(4) https://medium.com/multis/imagining-a-leaner-way-how-to-ship...

(5) https://medium.com/multis/security-at-multis-9609d346c91b

You already mentioned payroll and vendors, so I think you're already thinking of what I'm about to suggest... and then I might try to talk you out of it.

When I think of business cryptocurrency financial stuff, I also think of those things. Employees need to be paid, and they might want their paycheck in crypto or in fiat, or a combination of the two. Vendors that need to be paid will usually just want fiat, either through some kind of fiat electronic transfer, or a "bill pay" check that's printed and mailed.

The problem is that payroll is HARD. That's why banks, who handle business accounts, don't do payroll and it usually falls onto specialist companies. Given the "global" nature of cryptocurrency, many of your customers will likely have employees spread across the world, which also adds payroll complications when it comes to withholding, legality of cryptocurrencies, etc.

You might want to just partner with a payroll company otherwise you'll find that most of development (business, software, and legal) will end up being sucked into that blackhole side of the business that doesn't even have a high margin.

Paying vendors? That's relatively simple in comparison. That's why most banks DO provide bill-pay and transfer services.

What I suggest for your "secret sauce" is being very internal bureaucracy friendly and give out employee corporate debit cards freely.

Build your system so when a business signs up, they can make accounts for all their employees and managers and set up authorization workflows. If Bob in accounting wants to buy a new chair, he should be able to submit the request for the funds. If it meets various criteria (ex: less than $500, only needs manager approval and not department head approval) and gets approved, then your system makes the cost of the chair (plus some buffer) available on Bob's wallet which has a linked Multis debit card.

If the business only provides debit cards to managers and up, then it would make the funds available to the managers crypto wallet (and associated Multis debit card) so they can purchase Bob's chair.

Lastly, if you put in place this support of business organization structure, use the same structure for the multisignature systems. One of the signatures could be Bob's manager, or maybe it would require the manager and the department head, etc... But not Bob and his wife, who happens to be a manager in an entirely different department at the business.

I've done crypto work before, and also have recently build a "corporate bureaucracy friendly" authorization system for a SaaS I'm working on so putting those two experiences together seemed natural :-)

hey thanks for sharing your thoughts :)

agreed, payroll is hard - we actually mean only the payment part of payroll right now. we'll experiment on ourselves first by paying salaries in fiat+crypto to get a better idea of all the implications.

paying vendors is simpler indeed, and it's even better with crypto because you pay low fees (and not based on the amount you're sending)

we're totally aligned with what you're saying about the "secret sauce" - we actually released a feature called "direct transfers" that aims at doing that (except that it's not with a card atm) https://medium.com/multis/introducing-direct-transfers-a-new...

we need to go deeper in this "corporate bureaucry friendliness" though and have more levels (right now only owners/guests)

cool to see that you get what we're trying to do :)

Payrolls are done by accounting, but they use an interface to the bank to make the actual payments. It's usually a CSV file or similar, which is uploaded by the accounting software, and has just the amounts and account numbers. Checks are not used outside of USA.

interesting! that would be some sort of continuous employee stock-option plans