Revio is a SaaS startup that helps e-commerce and subscription-based businesses develop and scale. It was co-founded in 2019 by venture builder The Delta and a private investor.
Revio, in its most basic version, automates regular billing, sends electronic invoices, accepts any payment method, and reconciles with simplicity. Louis Buys, CEO of The Delta and one of the original co-founders of South African fintech firms Revix and Karri Payments, is leading the company.
Revio takes billing and payments to the next level by proactively identifying and managing customer churn using real-time customer payment analytics and machine learning, as well as using reward mechanisms to build customer loyalty and pre-approving merchants for access to growth capital.
“While providing customers with the payment methods they expect is important, there is more to collecting recurring revenue on an ongoing basis, especially in a market where more than 75 percent of consumers have at least one account in arrears,” Buys said.
“In South Africa, there are numerous banks, fintech, and card payment providers that allow businesses to accept payments in every shape and form, however, very few assist businesses to resolve their real pain-points, which is failed payments, customer churn, and loyalty.”
Revio was created with this goal in mind. It allows businesses to engage with customers in real-time thanks to the creative use of machine learning and analytics.
“Our no-code architecture means that engagement strategies can be set up on the fly to proactively reach out to customers at risk of churn, automate customer arrears management, reward customers and even drive cross-sell and up-sell campaigns,” said Buys.
The business secured a US$1 million seed investment at the time of its debut and is anticipated to break even in Q2 of 2022, based on its contracted customer pipeline.
“In a very short time Revio has been able to contract with many middle SMEs looking to scale their e-commerce and subscription offerings, as well as larger businesses in the insurance, private security, and VAS industries looking to centralize billing and reconciliation across brands in one platform,” said Buys.
“Very interesting, however, is the surge in other SaaS companies looking to integrate billing and payments capabilities via API. Many more savvy businesses are looking to source non-core capabilities to support their overall business offerings. Revio is also white-label-enabled and we are working with non-traditional financial services players to target specific sectors.”
Revio is now focused on the South African market, but by the end of 2021, it plans to extend to other African nations to assist global clientele. In 2022, the company plans to formally start in East Africa.
Its simplicity, especially when it comes to cost, is part of its attraction, according to Buys.
“In the industry, we have seen many providers aggregating bank or card tech that has complicated and expensive pricing structures to deal with inefficiencies in their platforms and operations,” he said.
“With Revio we wanted to simplify pricing. Potential clients are able to sign-up online for free, integrate and test, and when they are ready, request to have their profile and payment methods set to live. Revio has a volume-based tiered pricing model. No monthly or onboarding charges apply. Revio has also pre-negotiated the best card, bank, and alternative payment method pricing.”
Although the platform has experienced substantial growth in the middle-SME category, the majority of income is still earned by mid-to-large corporations at this point.
“For larger businesses, legacy technology architecture remains a challenge for integration. With Revio however, we have been able to overcome this by providing the platform standalone, have businesses test the capability whilst integration is ongoing, and migrate to the fully integrated solution when ready,” said Buys.
