Startup: Ebun - Directed International Money Transfer!

Transcription

1 Startup: Ebun - Directed International Money Transfer! Executive Summary Name of Startup: Ebun Overview: Ebun is developing an innovative multi-platform approach(web, mobile and retail) to create the cheapest, fastest, convenient, affordable and measurable way to send money as prepaid value(gift, payments, emergency and more) to family and friends, anywhere using retail, web and mobile. Investment sought: US $50,000 Percentage of equity offered: 10% Startup Founder Details How many founders does your startup have? 1 First Name of Founder(s): Omotayo Surname of Founder(s):

2 Brahm-Olorunoje Founder Participation Role: Founder Current Ownership: 100% Startup Idea Details Idea overview: Ebun is a mobile gift remittance service. We are creating an innovative way of remittance transfers among immigrants in Diaspora and their families living in developing countries, making them collaborative and cheap. Instead of sending money, Ebun allows them to send mobile gift vouchers (via SMS) for stores and supermarkets in their countries. The recipients receive a text message with an e-voucher via sms or mwallet, that can be used in stores and supermarkets in Africa. For the senders, it will be the first time they transfer remittance in a cheap and immediate way. For the recipients, we are a totally safe and convenient system that can be used as soon as received. 80% of the population in developing countries have mobile phones and Internet access; this is why we can operate new technology in a very efficient way. Instead of sending $100 through Western Union to a friend in India, who receives $90 in cash after fees, a sender could now send him a gift voucher for $100, which can be redeemed in full at the grocery store down the street from his house. The form factor shift is interesting, but what is potentially more disruptive is that our service comes at a dramatically lower cost for senders and receivers. Why we are focusing on specific services beyond cash is based on our research what we noticed is that 64% of the money people send back home is spent on food, medicine or bills (World Bank, 2010). There is no need to go through all these hurdles to get that money to where it s being used, so that s another reason why we partner with local retailers and service providers. Who is your target market? Our target markets are immigrant population sending money back home to their families. With over 20 million + immigrants from the US, African 2 million + and Asian 20 million+, sending money back home gives us a total addressable market of $4 Customer fee + $3 Retailer fee x 22 million African/Asian Immigrants x 12 = 1.8 billion addressable market.

3 Given the amount of money we re talking about and the outsized economic importance remittances have for recipients and their countries, it s surprising that the market has only experienced incremental levels of innovation over the years. Who are your competitors? Our competitors are divided into three sectors, 1) traditional Money transfer companies such as Western Union and Money gram which dominate the market was partly disrupted by the advent of online-based models. 2) Online based model e.g. zoom, worldremit digitized the sending experience in the early 2000s. While disruptive, the rise of the online-sending model is not wildly innovative. The traditional model merely shifted from analog to digital; the sender is still paying to transfer their money abroad and the recipient is still walking to a local agent/partner location to pick up their cash. 3) New business model such as "in kind remittance" e.g. regalii, willstream, quipp, isend, bluekite and "transfer through social media" e.g. fastacash and azimo are leading the way by creating innovative methods of sending money. According to CGAP 2013 study international remittance through branchless banking is a growing and large market with introductions of newly innovative business model, so as this is a growth market, I believe there is still plenty of room for new entrants into international remittance space and definitely immense opportunity for Ebun. Offering an affordable, convenient and easy to use multiplatform(online, mobile, social media and retail) approach to give senders control over how their money are spent would give us a competitive advantage over traditional and online based money transfer company's cash-out only model. By launching first in two of the biggest remittance market in Africa and Asia would give us a first to market advantage and building a platform for other financial and payment service for senders, recipients and retail would provide us with customer trust over new entrants in this niche market. This gives us a distinct advantage over our competitor, who only have one product to sell, remittance. The international remittances market is large and growing not surprising given the number of immigrants, family ties and transnational friendships that exist but the desire to control how remittance dollars are spent and to ensure that family needs in other countries are taken care, make our company an interesting one to watch. Marketing strategy: There are a number of strategy we are employing to acquire customers, 1) Viral video content on our landing page to tease and offer 2) referral bonus(growth hacking) to increase signup for our beta testing. 3) We would partner with local organization and merchants for customer education and grassroots campaign, community events within immigrants community during customer development/beta testing. After testing we've applied to launch at a global event e.g. launch, DEMO or Techcrunch disrupt. Traction:

4 We have established partnerships with 13 service provider; 6 retail partners(given us access to 107 supermarkets and stores) under contract and 50 in the pipelines and users on the waiting list from our UK customer development trial. Business Model: We aim to generate revenue by charging customers a fee to send money, 2) we charge retailers to redeem our gift code and debit card 3) we earn money on currency exchange when we hold money before paying partners in local currency 4) we charge retailers access to our customer analytic platform and text message based customer service. 5) Ads: we charge retailers when they use our sms based CRM loyalty and Reward platform 6) we charge a monthly subscription to consumer packaged goods company to have access to our sales analytics platform. Products Remittance: Ebun Pay allows senders to send money to their families and friends as bill payments to service providers, e,g, utilities, education. Ebun is our main products that allows money sent as gift tokens which serves as a cash substitute to recipients. It gives send control over how their money are being spent. Retail Technology: Up is our mobile based cloud pos for the informal retail sector in emerging countries, that helps retailers process debit cards/mobile money/our gift token and collects sale data for the CPGs industry. Connects to our customer analytics platform, CRM reward and loyalty platform and text message collaborative customer support service. Ebun wallet is our mobile based payment wallet allows recipients save gift token/debit cards, receive/store offers and reward, with inbuilt financial management service and connects to our customer support service. Ebun Cloud our sales data analytic and reporting platform for CPGs industry and research firms. Ebun API is our RESTful APi that would allow other service connect with our platform. Our text message based collaborative customer support service that allow small business/service providers/retailers connect with their customer over messaging platform. Our SmS based CRM loyalty and reward platform.

5 How will funds raised be used? $20,000 would be used to design and develop our remittance product, Mpos and mwallet. $10,000 would be use to manufacture a limited version of our card reader to test our mpos solution. $5000 would be reserved for operational expense. $10,000 would be used for customer development in US to Nigeria $5,000 would hire sales people in India to ramp up partners.