With Ruplee, now split your restaurant bill among your friends Enabling its users to pay fast and safe sans the hassle of carrying the wallet

"I had to wait for my cheque at a restaurant for over 20 minutes. I realized that this process could be streamlined for me to pay much faster and also maintain my payment history as well as loyalty in one place," recalled Stanford University alumni Natasha Jain.

With this thought in mind, she moved back from the Silicon Valley to India and started work on idea of creating a payment solution for the offline space. It took her approximately 3 months (July 2014 to September 2014) to shape her idea into reality and she finally called it "Ruplee'. "When we did our first Ruplee transaction and the customers loved the concept, seeing an idea come to life and getting positive feedback on it was really fulfilling," said Jain, Founder of Ruplee.

Today when financial transactions are largely becoming cashless and we are gradually moving towards a "digital business medium', Ruplee is here to replace the traditional cash/card payments. It is an innovative app which is positioned to change the way users transact, avail discounts, maintain loyalty and monitor payment records. It enables its users pay fast and safe, remove the hassle of carrying wallet, entering pins manually and keeping receipts.

(Image: Natasha Jain, Founder Ruplee)

"Via Ruplee, we aim to launch a plethora of features for both the merchants and consumers over the coming months, which will redefine our eating-out preferences. We are confident that this hassle-free technology will create a never seen before niche' in the eating-out paradigm of the country," said Jain.

Being mobile eating-out payment app, Ruplee is owned and operated under Ruplee i Pay Solutions Private Limited.

How does it work?

Allowing its users to pay at restaurants for dine in as well for home delivery with their phones, Startup revenue model is based on a fee for customer acquisition and retention for the merchant. Further it has monetized its customer analytics portal as well as promotions' dashboard.

Accepted across more than 200 restaurants and F&B (Food and Beverages) outlets in Delhi-NCR, Ruplee allows you to make payments in just 3 simple-easy clicks. Across leading eating out destinations like, Beer Café, LCA (Hauz Khas), Barsoom, The Project, MOETS Shack, Flying Saucer, Fork You, Chatter House, Hybrid, Open House, Café Warehouse, Boombox, OTB, Townhouse Café, Turquoise Cottage, Lord of the Drinks, Underdoggs, Chug It, Cheenos, White Waters and many more, Ruplee is the preferred mode of payment.

"Currently, there is no solution that enables payment in the offline space. I cannot go to a restaurant, store or salon and pay with my phone. Ruplee solves that problem. A consumer can walk into an outlet in the physical world and pay without having to carry their cash, card or wallet," opined Jain.

So what makes it unique?

Unlike other payment apps, Ruplee allow its users to split the bill while paying at a restaurant amongst their friends. Further, It's primary objective is user safety and security, and it uses a RBI approved Indian payment gateway that allows its users to pay securely by entering personal CVV and 3D secure pin each time they transact via the app. Ruplee also keeps a tab of their payment history and a peek into their spending activities, which helps its users to minimize their unproductive eating-out habits.

Apart from this, it also offers great convenience on home deliveries where its user can access "Ruplee on Delivery' feature and pay to the merchant via the app, thus removing the hassle of paying exact change to the delivery boy.

Moreover, its "Social Check-in' features rewards its users by providing automatic discounts as soon as users check in their preferred destination via social apps like Facebook.

The journey was not so easy!

For Natasha Jain, the journey was not as easy as it seemed. She had to go through many hitches to turn her idea into entrepreneurial venture. The most challenging task in front of her while executing her idea was to recruit talent to build a team who can turn her idea into reality. Commenting on the same lines Jain said, "Challenges faced while starting Ruplee was integrating extensively across so many merchants and dealing with network issues. Personally, the challenges I faced was recruiting and building a team to execute the concept."

Road ahead

Currently available on Android and iOS platforms, Ruplee presently operates in Delhi/NCR and in coming months plans for cross city expansion in Mumbai, Pune and others. "We ensure seamless customer experience through multiple layers of integration with payment gateways," explained Jain. Further, they are also planning to expand their reach into the sectors like retail and salons.

"Being a bootstrapped startup, Ruplee is now planning to raise certain amount from the investors for its operations, business development and marketing. We are in talks to raise funds. As we have already allocated our budget in different segments like Operations, Business Development, and Marketing, we will utilize the funds basis the demand from the specific segment," informed founder.

The potential for growth is very positive in the current market for Ruplee in the urban service sectors. Ruplee has grown from 10 to more than 200 merchants with a span of few months in 2015, also its expansion will add to the growth potential and help Ruplee target a $68 billion market.