As migrants from India, three friends have experienced an all-too-familiar issue felt by people who have part of their personal or professional networks outside the U.S: money transferring. Services such as Venmo or Zelle only support domestic payments within the U.S.. That creates a gap to access or send money to, for example, family members or employees in foreign countries.
With their combined decades of experience in software development, business and product management and a shared frustration with this issue, Parag Sharma (based in RTP), Rahul Chaudhary (based in Chicago) and Mohan Lath (based in London) decided to solve it themselves. The result is Unplex, a payment solution that sits on WhatsApp, the most-used chat application by people in India and many other countries. The three are co-founders, with Chaudhary serving as CEO.
With Unplex, Chaudhary said that they hope to bridge the gap in payment transfers internationally, while making it as user-friendly as possible for their non-English-speaking and not-so-tech-savvy demographics.
“All of these designs for Android and iOS have been designed in the U.S., with U.S. buyers in mind,” Chaudhary said. “Therefore there is this learning curve in Asia where people might not be savvy or educated in tech, so they may not be able to immediately learn how new apps are being used. But they understand chat apps intuitively and deeply, because they use them 30 to 40 minutes a day, 10 to 15 times a day.”
Currently, Unplex works similarly to an automated chat box within WhatsApp. The user would “chat” with Unplex and text it instructions to send money to a specific person, how much, what the money is for and potentially add a personalized message. So instead of people having to download another app, all of their money transactions and conversations can be done in one place.
By using AI and allowed permissions of the user’s data such as their bank account and contact list, Unplex will be able to predict what the user wants by what they type out. If the user wants to send $20 to their mom on Mother’s Day with a personalized or automated message, the AI can predict when Mother’s Day is in various countries (based on calendars), the amount of money to take from their accounts and who their mother is based on contact information.
This model is based on the theory that standalone apps will cease to exist in the future, Chaudhary said. Because of the growing state of AI and automated permissions, he believes that instead of going on a standalone app to, for example, order an Uber, we would be able to ask Siri or some intelligent assistant to order an Uber for us.
By tapping into this specific market, they open the possibility for people to access and do any task within one space—in this case, WhatsApp.
“Existing companies have created closed, profitable walled gardens, meaning their profitability is affected by ‘locking’ you in their app,” Chaudhary said. “Unplex is trying to drive something open. We believe that easy user experience is what is going to drive adoption—and is what is going to drive profit.”
Unplex is in the midst of raising their next funding round, after having already raised around $600K. They ask that any migrants or businesses with overseas employees using WhatsApp to try out their powerful AI-powered cross-border payment solution. They added that anyone in the Triangle interested in hearing more about their product and/or how to invest can reach out to [email protected].
Chaudhary has lived in the U.S. for over 18 years, yet said that there is a latent feeling of always feeling like an outsider. He could never use Zelle or Venmo to send money to his family members overseas and he always felt financially on edge since one financial mishap could take away his green card and impact his family.
Meanwhile Sharma, who is a successful founder of an India-based company valued north of $10 million, was refused for things like a U.S. credit card and a car loan, because international credit scores don’t seamlessly transfer to credit scores in the U.S. Frustrated for people like Sharma—especially those who come to the U.S. without his tech-savvy background and financial resources—Chaudhary and his Unplex team plan to update Unplex to support a credit translator that would help to explain how foreign credit histories can be measured and translated to U.S. metrics.
“Even if you are a 60-year-old millionaire in India, it feels that the U.S. doesn’t care about that,” Chaudhary said. “It feels like when we come into the U.S., we are nothing but just a migrant. That’s how we are treated, that’s who we are to them, and Parag did face that treatment. We want to change that narrative and ensure that no migrant ever feels like that.”
