We came across this problem separately while Amit was doing VC and Sunil was running his own fintech. We saw that a startup with $1M in the bank was facing mind-numbing issues in getting a card with a $5k limit. After speaking to finance managers in other companies of all ages and sizes, we realized the problem was massive. Seeing Brex at the same time growing so quickly gave us the kick to go out and figure out a way to solve this issue.
Before Karbon card, our customers were either using personal cards for company's card expenses or put a fixed deposit at a bank to get an equivalent credit limit on a card. Both options are painful in the long run: using personal cards leads to compliance issues, and putting a fixed deposit for a card locks your growth capital. Since we are a free product (we make money on interchange fees) and onboarding is simple, it is better to get a no-hassle corporate card from us.
Today we have a solution wherein a company completes a 10 minute application process and gets access to a virtual credit card right away. We are known across India’s startup community for quick card issuance (10 minutes vs 5 weeks), 10x higher credit limits compared to banks, and self-serve controls that help reign in unnecessary spending. We’ve also launched a vendor payment product that makes banking less cumbersome moving towards our longer term vision of becoming the only financial product a company would need to run it’s business aka India’s first corporate Neo bank.
Companies today use our product to run their marketing campaigns, infrastructure spends, pay SaaS vendors and take care of employee reimbursements. We work with clients who are as young as 2 weeks old to publicly listed companies in India. That alone shows the depth of the problem and the need for a company like us to help make corporate spending easier--it is the last thing a company should be blocked on.
Some of our customers are creatively using our card in ways that we have not even imagined. Our customer, Rajat, runs a marketing agency, and he issued himself 120 Karbon cards. He gave these cards to his clients and asked them to top up their cards to run Facebook ads. Another customer, Akshay, uses his card and payment product to process salaries and make vendor payments.
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