Gurgaon-based RedCarpet, a rewards and product discovery application which allows people to to find products online and order them for pickup in-store in kirana stores throughout India, has graduated Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator’s Summer 2015 batch, reports TechCrunch. RedCarpetcurrently claims to have tie ups with 120 stores, and 6x revenue growth across the past 4 months across Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida.
RedCarpet’s app is looking to simplify reward programmes where deals get applied automatically when users pay through the app. The application also claims to bring an Amazon-like personalization, loyalty and recommendation platform to local retailers. It says that its system works with legacy billing software used by small retailers and large retailers with more complex point of sale systems.
The company was founded by Kartik Venkatraman and Sandeep Srinivasa. Before starting RedCarpet, Venkatraman was VP for marketing & analytics at Tradus. In previous roles, he held numerous leadership roles at Travelocity and Sabre, where he built products and processes to optimize decision making in multiple areas including pricing, display and merchandizing, marketing and customer care.
Sandeep Srinivasa was VP of Engineering at PropTiger.com, where he delivered the company’s property search and mapping, CRM system and catalog service. Prior to that he functioned as director of engineering at Tradus where he built the supply chain backend, search and operations platform. He also founded Clearsenses, a product development company and his first startup.
Earlier in April 2104, Y Combinator had said that it would put more money to work in startups for the same equity stake that it normally takes. It will now put $120,000 to work in each startup in lieu of a 7% stake. Earlier, the accelerator’s standard deal was $17,000 for 7%, plus a safe that converted at the terms of the next money raised for another $80,000.
In 2014, Delhi-based ClearTax, that helps users file taxes online, was accepted into Y Combinator’s programme. ClearTax allows Indian to e-file their tax returns through its website. The company claims to have been approved by the Government of India. Users may self-file their tax returns using the platform, which is free, or opt for assisted filing of their tax returns. To access the assisted filling, users are required to upload their Form 16 onto the website and the platform will take the necessary information from this form itself.
Competition
– There’s Mumbai-based First Quadrant Solutions’ loyalty app called Sqy! Rewards (now renamed OneRewards) which lets users keep track of and avail their reward points across certain retailers, brands, outlets and restaurants.
– In April, Quikcilver launched a loyalty rewards points, gift card and virtual wallet app. The app, called Woohoo, will let users pay through mobile online and offline, has partners in brands like Levi’s, Cafe Coffee Day, Cleartrip, Myntra, Payback and MobiKwik among others.
– HDFC Bank also launched PayZapp which brings together hundreds of e-commerce platforms on it and allows consumers to pay via a wallet. The application also informs users about offers and rewards the bank’s customer’s can get at both offline and online stores.
– In June 2014, Bangalore-based mobile point of sale (PoS) payments startup Ezetap acquired the Hyderabad-based loyalty platform Clinknow which enables merchants create and offer real-time offers to their customers based on their transaction history.
