Startup bags funding from 500 Startups, Expara to help banks better interact with clients

(L-R) Salutat co-founders Sam Upra and Mike Driver / Photo credit: Salutat

When Mike Driver was an investment officer at the Asian Development Bank and then subsequently at the International Finance Corporation, he spotted a problem.

“We were investing in banks and microfinance institutions, and we were really watching these guys struggle with digital transformation,” he recalls.

One core concern, he says, was how inefficiently managed client relationships were. “We see situations where a loan officer has as many as 400 customers. They have to know their names and profiles, and they’re not using a customer relationship management tool to keep track of the conversations they’re having.”

So in 2017, Driver teamed up with Sam Upra – then an engineer at hotel-booking platform Agoda – to start software startup Salutat. The company created an app that streamlines communications between a financial institution’s relationship managers with its customers.

And now, Salutat has just raised a 6-figure seed round from 500 Startups, Singapore-based Expara Ventures, Startupbootcamp, social enterprise investment firm IIX, and a few angel investors. This marks the Thailand-headquartered startup’s first investment round.

Streamlining communications

“What we’re seeing is that loan officers are increasingly having to speak with customers digitally – on WhatsApp, Line, and Facebook Messenger. Customers don’t want to download another app,” observes Upra, now Salutat’s CTO.

This makes it even more complex for relationship managers who often have to juggle between customers and platforms.

What Salutat did to solve the problem was to bring everything together in one mobile app. Loan officers with hundreds of customers to deal with, for example, can access all of their information – chat history, loan details, etc. – on the app itself. They can also contact clients directly on the platform, which automatically sends their messages to the users’ preferred chat platform.

Salutat’s software also has a webapp version for executives, where they can oversee all activities by their loan managers to monitor the service provided and to check whether there are cases of harassment or fraud.

For now, Salutat directly works with its clients to set up the system, charging a fee for the product and service. But it has plans to transition to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model by the end of 2019. This will mean that users can download and integrate the software directly from the website without help from the company.

The startup is currently working with five businesses, who are located in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. One of its customers is Baobab, a financial services company that does business in Africa and China.

Salutat only has a few clients for now, but Driver expects this will “ramp up” once their SaaS model is launched.

Challenges and future plans

But the space is not without its challenges, with innovative startups and solutions popping up to disrupt the financial sector. This, in turn, means more competition in the market.