Their pay off is “make it easy” but is it easy for an Italian startup to make its way into the fintech sector? Looking at the speed with which SplittyPay is growing, it would seem so, but behind this success, and the smart pay off, there is a lot to tell. We have Alberto Porzio, founder of this startup which entered the Fintech District community last autumn, do so directly.
Since joining the Fintech District community, how have you grown?
We joined the community 1 year ago and a lot has changed since then. We started with a business idea that evolved over time, bringing some changes aimed at responding to the needs of users and merchants. In the meantime, we completed 2 rounds of financing for a total of 360k€ as well as acquiring a competitor platform with the aim of completing our offer.
How has your strategy changed and why?
Our strategy has not substantially changed, the SplittyPay payment platform is still the core business of the company and we are convinced that in the long run, we will find great satisfaction with this product. However, the B2B negotiations are complex and long so we have had some delay with respect to the roadmap. This does not scare us. We have already signed agreements with important merchants and many integrations already planned between now and the end of the year. We have decided to anticipate the implementation of the Splitted platform, also taking advantage of an opportunity that has allowed this step, to start generating revenues in the short term, pending the integration of SplittyPay.
Any Milestones reached worth remembering?
Undoubtedly the Fintech award of the e-commerce observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, the first real transactions with the first merchants who have adopted SplittyPay for the first phase of testing and the first revenues of the Splitted platform!
What’s Splitted?
Splitted is an innovative, secure and practical digital collection service that allows you to manage expenses between groups of people by creating shared collections. Each collection can be customized through a rich set of options and can be public or private. Each user can enter a fee, free or predefined, using their preferred payment system. The payment of fees is also open to users not registered to the platform. Splitted is also a social-payment platform. Thanks to the social wall integrated into each collection it is possible to create a strong interaction between users, add comments with photos or videos and categorize them through hashtags.
What do you expect from this new service? How does it complement or enhance your previous offer?
Splitted is a natural evolution of the SplittyPay platform. Our goal is to offer 360° solutions in the field of online group payments. While with SplittyPay we have a predominantly B2B market, with Splitted we also wanted to open up the possibility of overseeing the B2C market with an innovative, easy-to-use platform, that can bring benefits in terms of the brand to SplittyPay.
The decision to launch the new product right now was dictated by the fact that there was the opportunity to acquire the technology and user base belonging to a direct competitor who had been operating for several years, allowing us consequently not to have to start from scratch and start, instead, from day 1 to generate revenues. Without this possibility we would probably not have decided to launch Splitted in the short term. You need to know how to seize opportunities and make the right decision quickly and time will tell us if this choice is right.
How useful has it been for you to join the Fintech District in recent months?
Fintech District is establishing itself as the nerve centre of Milanese and Italian innovation. Working for several months at its headquarters we have been able to benefit from many services, participate in events and get in touch with top experts in the Fintech sector. It has helped us improve our product, understand compliance standards and study new trends in order to plan the growth and evolution over the next few years. We have also been able to create synergies with some other companies within the building.
Watch the video about SplittyPay here.
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