1Silverbullet; B2B Infrastructure Company disrupting financial companies’ path to digitization.
1SilverBullet streamlines operations in India’s financial services business, by eliminating paperwork, physical signatures, and middlemen and fixing the unevenly digitized and broken communication chain. Leveraging the power of technology such as Blockchain, the platform acts as a single point of contact for consumers, financial institutions, and developers linking them in one place via a secure API. Also, where the industry (new entrants) doesn’t have a platform built yet, 1Silverbullet may build a SAAS layer. Thus providing businesses with a ready, 100% digital & secured infrastructure helping them go to market 50 percent faster. Mr. Milan Ganatra, Founder & CEO, 1Silverbullet shares more insights on the same.
- How and when did you get the idea for 1 Silverbullet?
The idea for 1Silverbullet was born when I was running my previous company, Miles Software. In my roles as a fintech provider and an investor over the last two decades, I have closely observed several shortcomings in the communication chain between financial instrument providers, intermediaries and investors. These processes heavily rely on paperwork, physical signatures, and human intervention, and because of this are clearly inefficient. This ended up doing more harm than good and often became more of a deterrent for investors.
I knew that I had to find a way to optimise the ecosystem, and help it evolve. Using my decades of experience with financial technology I worked towards identifying suitable solutions that helped streamline workflows, enhance communication channels and resolve operational inadequacies that were preventing the country from reaching its full potential when it came to digital penetration of financial products. This is how 1Silverbullet was conceptualised.
I founded 1SilverBullet in 2021 during the pandemic. It is India’s first B2B financial gateway platform for the three verticals within the financial services industry: investment, insurance, and lending.
- What are the different product segments that the service covers?
1Silverbullet aims to offer a more secure workflow in order to declutter the financial services space in the country. Leveraging technology such as Blockchain, the platform acts as a point of contact for investors and financial institutions, linking them via a secure API for AIFs, PMS, FDs, MLDs, Life Insurance, Health Insurance, MFs etc.
The financial service landscape is dependent on excessive paperwork and has been a maze of consultants, intermediaries, and brokers. To refine the trade of financial products, I founded 1Silverbullet. It is an attempt to digitally streamline and reduce human interaction. The infrastructure is a plug-and-play mechanism that connects investors and financial institutes. Our aim is to offer a secure workflow to declutter the space and also introduce new trade types like SIP, STP, and Recurring Deposits etc.
- How is your company helping businesses deliver relevant outcomes through the adoption of the company’s technology innovations?
1Silverbullet provides its clients with a user-friendly, plug-and-play console to choose and integrate APIs based on their use cases and run a pilot within a sandbox environment. It also has features to monitor the performance of APIs, meter calls for billing) and high-quality documentation to help investors and financial institutes understand how they can better use the APIs of 1Silverbullet.
Where the industry (new entrants) doesn’t have a platform built yet, we may build a SAAS layer and launch as a sub-section of the overall 1Silverbullet platform thereby cutting down their time to go live in the market by 50 percent, while also helping them save money on hiring expert developers.
- API adoption has skyrocketed in the last one year, with about 92% of organizations seeing increased usage of APIs. What is your opinion on this?
Technology has raised consumer expectations for curated experiences. We are witnessing an era where technology and society are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt, consumers are constantly demanding more and looking for better experiences. In line with these demands it is challenging to find solutions in isolation, that’s where APIs come into picture. In today’s app-driven economy, APIs are considered to be the building blocks of digital transformation.
While private and partner APIs have been around, open APIs is a new innovation that allows businesses to integrate third-party services by onboarding already available APIs.
The widespread adoption of digital models owing to the pandemic was a big push. Industries across retail, manufacturing to finance and hospitality shifted the way they did business, pivoting from traditional means to digital ones. APIs helped businesses by simplifying connectivity and collaboration.
I also believe In future almost 90% of financial services companies will be API-first companies.
- Why is API security a top priority for business enterprises?
Data is the new oil and given the rise of data-dependency organisations are utilising APIs for sharing crucial data between their workloads, softwares and systems. There has been a significant increase in the adoption of open APIs in the last decade or so due their ability to fuel innovation, faster processing, and revenue
However, its huge popularity comes tied to high security concerns, which organisations often tend to overlook. Security is of supreme importance while developing APIs, since broken APIs can expose a lot of sensitive financial and/or personal information.
- What future do you see for the Indian API marketplace?
For any business from finance to hospitality and travel, the future relies on API-based connectivity. APIs will be a pre requisite for organizations looking to achieve the speed, agility, and digital empowerment. As the digital ecosystem continues to evolve, the major carriers of the future will use APIs to partner, collaborate and create best-in-class solutions and services for their users.
- What are your immediate and long-term growth plans?
We intend to add more products such as corporate fixed deposits, corporate bonds, and structured notes to the investment gateway by the end of this calendar year.
As part of our 5-year plan, we hope to broaden our spectrum to include travel, transportation, and other verticals. In terms of pure numbers, we are looking at achieving a topline of at least $200 million by 2026.
As we build our clientele we would also increase our staff strength, with a workforce of at least 200 employees.
I believe that a company like ours holds immense potential for the future. With 1Silverbullet, we want to be the UPI for investments and insurance and be a truly transformational force for the financial services ecosystem.
About 1Silverbullet:
1SilverBullet is a fully digitized state-of-the-art B2B gateway serving three financial services verticals – Investments, Insurance, and Lending. Headquartered in Mumbai with a development centre in Pune, the company was founded in March 2021 and is helmed by serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and the former CEO of Miles Software, Milan Ganatra, who has over two decades of experience in the financial services space. 1SilverBullet is a dynamic platform that connects investors and financial institutions in one place via a secure API, allowing businesses to experience a digital infrastructure. Introduced after just three months of beta testing, the company is leveraging the power of Blockchain to serve as a revolutionary single point of contact protocol between multiple stakeholders.
