Narvi Payments Profile

Narvi Payments is a fintech and business-to-business (B2B) API-first digital banking solution. 

Interview With Neil Ambikr

Describe your product or service & the problem it’s solving:

“Narvi is a regulated Electronic Money Institution which provides an API-first digital banking solution for companies.”

How did you come up with and validate your startup idea? Tell us the story!

“I worked as a consult for a while in the past. and I saw how much small businesses struggled with banking when it came to international and cross border payments. At that time I wanted to design a simple banking solution which would get rid of all the delays and high costs related to international business. naturally our product pivoted a lot from the starting idea.”

How is your startup funded, and what advice do you have for other founders seeking funding?

“We are fully self-funded. It is a complex topic whether to get funded or not. depends a lot on the market you are in. In our market which is heavily regulated, I prefer to be self-funded as things take time. you cannot make regulation go faster. self funding helps you stay lean and move at your and the pace we want. and not fall the usual startup ‘burn rates.’”

How big is your team, and what qualities do you look for when hiring new employees?

“We are 15 people. As most of us are remote, we like to work with people who can work independently making decisions. the downside of remote is you cannot really train people. so people need to already have the right skills and mindset for the job if they will succeed.”

Who is your target market? How did you determine this, and what strategies did you use to reach and engage them?

“We are focused on digital businesses from Web3 companies to ecommerce. We find digital companies building complex products to be our best customers.”

What’s your primary marketing strategy?

“Linkedin, conferences, affiliates and investing in SEO and word of mouth.”

What has been your most successful marketing campaign, and why do you think it worked so well?

“Affiliates. Having the right affiliate partnerships, like with law firms and accounting firms, means that they can build trust on our behalf and explain our product as they already understand their customers’ needs. then we find the sales cycle to be very short and just about pricing and if the solution meets their needs.”

What do you consider to be your company’s biggest competitive advantage, and how do you maintain it?

“We build all our own technology. That is very rare in fintech. Also, we have a deep understanding of regulation and fintech to help the customer on their journey.”

What were the biggest challenges you faced in the early stages of building your startup, and how did you overcome them?

“Regulation and banking relationships is the hardest part. There is no easy answer. just getting to understand all the ins and outs over time and becoming an expert so that we know how things work and how we can make it work for us.”

What is something that surprised you about entrepreneurship?

What is something that surprised you about entrepreneurship?n equivalent market. This disparity truly astonished me.”

What is your #1 piece of advice for startup founders?

“Try to find a niche and not get caught up in the startup hype.”