This Startup Creates Market Independent Investment Products For Retail Investors : Pyse

• ByStartupStory     |    June 18, 2021

“People should not lose out on the opportunity to invest in an asset class just because we haven’t heard of it.” – Kaustubh Padakannaya, cofounder of Pyse

“When you invest money into a project directly, you don’t just get your returns on a month on month basis, we also tell you how much of your carbon footprint has been reduced because of the investment,” says Kaustubh Padakannaya in conversation with Startup Story.

Story of “Pyse”

Kaustubh tells us how he and his co-founder Vinay Mantha thought of starting Pyse after they got their first paycheck. Not wanting to let their money sit in a fixed deposit, they started “to find out if there was a sweet spot between a debt and an equity product” and came across the alternative assets classes.

He tells Startup Story, “When we talk about alternative assets to people, the first thing that comes to their mind is either real estate or gold and they are probably the most common ones. But we started exploring this more, we took time to explore other assets that are available. This is where we stumbled upon sustainability-focused projects – things like renewable energy projects, electric vehicles that would probably be leased out to corporates. These were assets that HNIs (High Net worth Individuals) have been investing in for quite some time. But people like me and you, with an average salary of a few thousand rupees can’t afford it.”

Kaustubh and Vinay wanted to break this barrier between that asset class and common people with average incomes. This is where Pyse comes in. Pyse is incubated by a venture builder platform mbys2 based out of Bangalore helping them pursue their goals in the sustainability space.

What Pyse provides

Pyse has made investing in sustainable assets affordable for the general public with average income. The biggest problem in making this a reality has been the lack of knowledge around this subject in the general public. To make it easier to understand, Kaustubh explains the transaction with help of an example:

“For example, we have 50 electric scooters that are leased out to a client like bounce. Now, as an individual investor I can’t buy all 50 of them. So we pool in 200 investors to invest 50k rupees each, and we buy these 50 scooters and we lease it out to bounce. Bounce pays us monthly rent for using it and that’s the return on investment.” Pyse has also partnered up with marquee clients like Tata Communications to finance their rooftop solar requirements. Retail investors can invest in these projects now starting at ₹5,000.

While this sounds so simple here, there’s still a lot to know about this. As Kaustubh explains to Startup Story,

“As of now, we are focusing on making people aware of the asset class and what it does. And we internally have put up the effort of building more awareness and reducing the learning curve.”

Marketing and customer outreach

As earlier said, the lack of knowledge around the subject has been one of the biggest challenges that the team of Pyse has had to face, which ultimately ended up shrinking their client base. Owing to this issue, they came up with many other innovative persuasive ways to sell services of Pyse. He explains to Startup Story, “When you invest money into a project directly, you don’t just get your returns on a month to month basis, we also tell you how much carbon footprint has been reduced because of your investment.”

He explains how he reaches his customers, most of whom are people already aware of the subject, “Our digital outreach is not that much because we have been getting organic users to come in, especially with the kind of traction we have today and word of mouth. We are also looking at people who have partnered with us. People to whom we rent these scooters – we have created products for their employees. It’s like reverse PF – in this case, employees would give their money, invest in these assets and instead of liquidating a PF at the end of the 25-30 years, you will get fixed monthly returns from the start.”

Apart from this, Pyse is partnering up with a lot of cafes in Bangalore that are focusing specifically on vegan food and vegan lifestyle. They provide the people who come to these restaurants/cafes with a personalized note explaining the impact they would create by investing as small as their bill amount in this asset class and why they should do so. Kaustubh adds, “We are also looking to partner with car dealerships to build a hybrid product where if you buy a petrol car, which would cost 12-15 lakhs, we advise them to invest 2-3 lacks in Pyse to offset the carbon that they emit from their cars.”

Customer experience and ease of use

Using Pyse has been kept as easy as possible, Kaustubh tells Startup Story. How easy would it be for you to invest? “There are three steps for you:  one, create an account; two, complete KYC; three, invest. We wanted to make it as simple as that. The returns come to you in your account on a month on month basis,” says Kaustubh. Pyse was launched 7 months ago and already many of their customers are recommending this to their relatives and friends. A level of trust has been established between the company and its customers. As of now, they are trying their best to educate everyone about these assets. Kaustubh says, “It’s new, it has different fundamentals. To fight this entire knowledge curve issue, we have been trying to do as much as we can and educate people. We are creating a lot of learning content to educate people about how these asset classes work.

Message to aspiring entrepreneurs

Emphasizing on creating an easy and equal environment in the beginning stages of a start-up, Kaustubh says, “In the beginning, all of us are just employees, we are at the same level. I’m sure the dynamic changes when the company grows – maintaining a hierarchy is important then – but not so much in the beginning.” Apart from that, he also suggests young entrepreneurs to develop good relationships with people in the industry. “Relationships help – their advise and support is exactly what you need in an early stage startup with a small team. There is absolutely nothing more important than relationships for a business. Reach out to people early so that they know what you do.”

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