News: CRED taps into corporate expense management space, acquires Happay

Compensation & Benefits

CRED taps into corporate expense management space, acquires Happay

"As the workplace becomes cashless, contactless and paperless, professional expenses form a higher proportion of credit card bills," wrote Kunal Shah, Founder, CRED, in a LinkedIn post.
CRED taps into corporate expense management space, acquires Happay

The rapidly growing credit card bill payments platform, CRED is all set to buy Happay in a cash and stock deal. The current valuation of the expense management firm stands at approximately $180 Mn.

Announcing the new acquisition on LinkedIn, CRED Founder Kunal Shah, wrote, "Today we welcome Happay into the CRED club, extending our proposition to make business expense management as rewarding for members."

Founded in 2012 by Varun Rathi and Anshul Rai, Happay manages work-related expenses for over 1 Mn users globally with approximately $1 Bn in annual spending. Companies like TATA Grow, PwC, Maruti, OYO, and Byjus, among others, use Happay's expense management platform. 

With this acquisition, CRED aims to utilise Happay's software stack and in-house payment engine and complement the card management experience that CRED members enjoy for their personal expenses.

"It is the only unified platform that automates the spend management workflow, a trend that is set to explode in a contactless, paperless world, while ensuring compliance and visibility with an end-to-end audit trail,” said CRED, in a media statement. 

Happay's acquisition further widens CRED's portfolio, marking its entry into workforce expense management space. After witnessing rapid growth for three years, Kunal said, professional expense management was a natural proposition for the company. 

The firm mopped up $466 Bn in 2021 and is set to join Razorpay and Meesho who are also in talks to corner new rounds at valuations over $5 Bn, as per a report by Entrackr. 

What happens to Happay post-acquisition?

As part of the deal, Happay will operate as a separate entity, with CRED's leadership team working closely with it to leverage CRED's ecosystem, expand product offerings and scale up operations. Additionally, all of Happay’s 230 employees will be eligible for benefits offered to CRED employees, including its ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) programme.

The growing workforce expense management market

With increased HR tech adoption, the growing popularity of workforce management solutions is inevitable. It emerging as a critical tool for business processes to centralise resource usage data and enhance overall employee experience. As per ResearchAndMarkets.com, the Workforce Management Software Market is expected to reach US$ 10.64 Bn by 2027 from US$ 6.28 Bn in 2020, growing with a CAGR of 7.82% during 2020-2027. 

As the workforce management market continues to evolve with other players like Workforce Now, Paylocity, Ceridian, Dayforce, BambooHR, and Paycom also growing continuously, will we see other big players like CRED also enter the market?


Image Credit: TechCircle

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Topics: Compensation & Benefits, HR Technology, Funding & Investment, Technology

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