Zaggle combines payment with analytics and gives out rewards

Zaggle an award winning digital payments, cashback and analytics company, and is here with a vision to help corporates and individuals enjoy gifts and experiences across multiple channels on a daily basis. It could be in the form of employee rewards and recognition, channel partner incentives, gifts to customer and employee benefits. Whether it is through online shopping cashback, gift vouchers, prepaid gift cards or various restaurant cashback Zaggle tracks all and aims to bring a smile on its user’s face.

The main idea behind Zaggle is creating, marketing and distributing payment solutions on a daily basis through the discipline of execution and rapid product development. This motivation comes from their team comprising of 100 strong people, well determined to grow in a short span of time.

How it all started and about its Pillars Chairman and CEO

Zaggle was founded in 2011 by Phani N. Raj (44 years, Founder and Chairman), a serial entrepreneur and seed investor. Mr. Phani conducted his own survey and found out that more than 90% of the people going to a hotel, especially the one’s going for a five star rated hotel, often checked for discounts and offers, it was this tendency of people that sparked an idea in the mind of the Zaggle’s Founder to come up with cash back system at the restaurant.  As a founder of the brand merchandising and corporate gifting company eYantra, Raj soon realized that customers were looking for choice and flexibility. When corporates started approaching Raj for a solution, he decided to tackle it with a platform on which the merchants and consumers could seamlessly interact and Zaggle was born.

Raj had a successful stint at the businesses in the prepaid payment, the internet, retail and brand merchandising spaces. The seeds of his success began early when he was 18 and sold custom t-shirts in after-school hours. Given a chance to speak with Raj the very conversation would end up in creating new ideas, strategies, and execution for a successful business.

Raj is a key contributor in the Indian startup ecosystem, a true visionary known for being a sounding board, mentor and angel investor to entrepreneurs and startups across a wide spectrum. When Raj isn’t at work, he can be found playing cricket, golf or badminton. Or he could be busy in his garden tending to his organic vegetables with the same passion that he applies to his entrepreneurial interests.

Avinash (38 years, Managing Director and CEO) is an experienced senior executive with successful international tenures at ING Bank, Barclays, Citicorp, Misys International and NIIT Technologies among others. Before Zaggle, Avinash launched the ‘Premier Miles Credit Card’ at Citibank and turned it into the biggest credit card launch in India, winning an award from MasterCard in the process.

He strives every day to build Zaggle into a world-class organization excelling in teamwork. Avinash has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business and has worked in 12 countries across five continents.

When not in the office, Avinash follows cricket & football. Or he is equally likely to be curled up with a book. Avinash’s international experience has only fueled his desire to travel; having checked off five continents from his list, he actively looks for every opportunity to explore new parts of the world.

Aims and Achievements

The main aim of Zaggle is to accelerate the conversion of cash transactions to digital payments through mobile, cards and other digital formats thereby bringing convenience, speed, security & choice to the customers. The word ‘Zaggle’ stands as an antidote to ‘Haggle’.

Since its inception, Zaggle has grown to six offices across India, with 1000+ corporate clients, 1500+ merchant relationships, over 6 lakhs gift cards in the market, and over 2,50,000 downloads on the Zaggle App. The most laudable moment for Zaggle was when they achieved the magical figure of 2.5 lakhs app downloads in a small span of 7 months in Hyderabad and Pune.

Future plans of Zaggle

The Zaggle team is now working on creating integrated issuance and acceptance solutions that will revolutionize the Indian and global payment industry.

Internal accruals are the current source of fund for the organization, thereby looking forward to attracting investors in further expanding the firm. With this idea, they are even participating in Startup cricket league which is a wonderful platform to bring startup enthusiast together by the medium of most loved sports in India.