Salt, a platform that assists women in mapping their money and making investment decisions, plans to raise funds early next year and hopes to reach 100,000 users by the end of 2023. As its founders prepare to add new products, the platform has also transitioned from a web-only offering to an app.
In a conversation with Moneycontrol, the app's co-founders Shinjini Kumar and Chaitra Chidanand said that the web offering, which was released in May, has already clocked 70,000 users across their products.
“We chose to go with a web interface before an app because, on the web, you can iterate the product more rapidly. Secondly, most users who are professionals end up spending a lot of time in front of their laptops. Many of them have Gmail, WhatsApp, etc. open on their browsers. We also want Salt to be open in browsers because money is an integral part of your life,” Chidanand explained.
Salt was founded in 2020 when Chidanand devised a plan to assist women in managing their finances. During the pandemic, Kumar and Aditi Sholapurkar joined her as co-founders. The app currently has 70 percent female users and 30 percent male users.
Also read: Why Salt app was built: Every woman, earning or not, has money flowing through her life
Salt added digital gold and mutual funds as investment and savings options in August and November, respectively, in addition to a passbook offering that allows users to fill in their expenses and savings.
“In November, we clocked about $0.5 million in assets under management (AUM) across the two products. In the next 12-18 months, we will add savings products including fixed deposits, recurring deposits, and sovereign gold bonds. In investing we will add ETFs, stocks etc,” Chidanand said.
Kumar added that the platform might seek a licence from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to offer select insurance products.
The company will consider raising additional funds early next year as it works on expanding its product line and achieving product market fit. Up until this point, Salt has only raised an undisclosed amount from investors such as 3one4 Capital, Graph Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Ulu Ventures, and angel investors as part of its seed round.
“We will want to have more money. Mainly because as we start getting more users, there will be costs towards tech and further product development. We have a lot of inbound enquiries to get the product to more users, so we are ready for more money. We were not ready for more money until we were putting our heads down and building the product,” Kumar said.
Low customer acquisition costs
Prior to launching its products, Salt had created a quiz for users to determine their money personality. The test was taken by 200,000 individuals and served as the basis for the startup's product decisions. In an effort to further engage customers and increase the virality of its offerings, the company is developing a new quiz called Money Life Choices.
“Our digital customer acquisition cost (CAC) is less than $1. This is mainly because we have cracked Instagram and Facebook as customer acquisition channels. The click-through rate we are seeing on our ads is 80 basis points,” said Chidanand.
In 2023, the company will evaluate how its products can self-promote to reach more users, thereby eliminating the need to spend on customer acquisition. The objective is to create a $1 downward trend in the CAC.
In addition, the founders stated that by the end of 2023, they intend to offer additional revenue-generating products.
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