WatBlog Newsletter Archive: WATBlog Update "Saturday Startup Review I - Rupeetalk.com" from "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Saturday, February 7, 2009

WATBlog Update "Saturday Startup Review I - Rupeetalk.com" from "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

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"Saturday Startup Review I - Rupeetalk.com" from "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India"

Saturday Startup Review I - Rupeetalk.com

Well its saturday again and we are back with our saturday startup reviews. We are covering a lot of self funded startups lately but we thought it was about time we reviewed a funded startup but one which is not much blogged about in the online scene. So here is startup review no.1 for today!

Rupeetalk- Well rupeetalk as the name suggests is an online portal focusing on financial product comparison. There are several companies now is some or the other financial vertical comparison space all working on providing leads to banks and financial institutions. So to startoff this isn’t a really unique model.

One sentence description: RupeeTalk is/will be a one-stop solution to everything related to personal finance.

About Startup: Rupeetalk is currently providing online services to its customers i.e. product comparison across financial service products. In the future it plans to add offline aspects of customer services as well. i.e. after comparison once a customer decides what suits his/her requirements best. He/she then applies for the product by filling in his/her details or leaves telephone number for Rupeetalk customer service executive to call him/her on the preferred time and also visit their home to explain the products. Its three-pronged strategy of 'Search, Compare and Select' which rupeetalk is following.

About Founders: Rupeetalk is founded by Satkam Divya, an IIM Lucknow alumnus in December 2007 who was joined by another IIM-L graduate Deepak Singh. Rupeetalk CEO & MD Divya has worked with some premier banking and financial institutions like ICICI Bank and Times Money, while Deepak Singh, COO and JMD, was with ICICI Lombard.

Funding Status: : Funded for about a million dollars by Seedfund

WAT's HOT: Well to start with its a compresive comparison site with comparison available across loans, insurance, fixed deposits etc. What is also appealing is the tab based comparison engine which drives down the focus of the site as a comparison site.

They have a dedicated information section called the learning centre which has Guides, Tips, FAQs, Glossary and a 5 Point Guide across financial products. Surely a good resource for a newbie wanting to engage in financial product buy.

WAT's NOT:Well while they are comprehensive in covering the vaious verticals of financial products they are not so comprehensive when it comes to financial players. They mostly had data from the newer players like Barclays and Reliance Consumer Finance and very little from bigger players like ICICI bank and Citibank which also explains why their logo is not present on the site. We understand their their business model revolves around generating leads and charging those leads to these financial institutions but the quality of any comparison site is based on how comprehensive it is and rupeetalk fails in that department.

All in all it seems a me too at this stage though given the nascent stage of the market I wouldn't write them off as there is a long way to go in this space. They also have a million dollars backing them which means there is room for improvement as well as the money to make it happen.