E-Sewa Case Study- Pioneer in Digital

Nepal

The proverb “Necessity is the mother of invention” applies to e-

Sewa Nepal as the company acknowledged the hardship of people
who had to travel kilometers just to make an electricity bill payment
of a mere amount of Rs.80. The company conceptualized such an
amazing concept of online payment platform back in 2006 when
internet penetration was just 2% and was released in 2009 and
finally started service on 25th Jan 2010 with the intension of solving
common men’s problems. Who would have imagined that e-Sewa
would reach 10 million users and would become a household name
in 2020?
 Table of Contents

 Man Behind e-Sewa

 e- Sewa Business and Revenue Model

 Funding and Investments

 Employee and Competitors

 Marketing Strategy

 Business Challenges

 Future of e-Sewa

Man Behind e-Sewa

Mr. Biswas Dhakal is the founder of e-Sewa, a pioneer in digital

payment service. A curious child who found great joy in dismantling
and repairing electrical equipment went on to join electrical
engineering but sadly struggled with complex diode and circuits and
lost interest and discovered programming to be his true love. This
failure in life pulled him into such a stoop of depression that he
attempted to physically harm himself.
Fortunately, he came out of it and joined software and became a
software engineer. His passion for software led him to start a
company called F1soft along with his other futuristic friends Asgar
Ali, Subash Sapkota, and Subash Sharma, which was Nepal’s first
domain registration and hosting company. However, he could not
reap much of success in the field and got an idea to diversify his
business into an online payment service as he saw that an easy
payment gateway was the need of the hour. The company went on
to do extensive market research before venturing into digital
payment. His life story from a depressed boy to a successful
entrepreneur is a ray of hope to youth to follow their passion with
complete involvement, determination, and patience.
e- Sewa Business and Revenue Model:
hin from the agent.
Sponsored 

e- Sewa Business and Revenue Model

The company offers an e-payment platform where consumers,
banks, customers, remittance transfers transact. It has two models
i.e. B2B and B2 C. Users can use this platform to send, receive
transfer funds from, and to more than 90% of banks in Nepal. It can
also be used to withdraw digital money from ATM, online shopping,
ticket purchase, subscribe for online courses. Knowing that not all
Nepalese have access to the internet or smart-phone, it is providing
some of the services via SMS and e-Sewa centers across the
country. e-Sewa charges revenue based on transactions. While
merchants have to pay commission on every transaction users are
charged only interbank transactions.

Revenue analysis of the last few quarters:

quarter 19-Q1 19-Q2 19-Q3 19-Q4 20-Q1 20-Q2
Revenue($) 7M 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M
Note: Above Data is taken from Zoominfo.com
Funding and Investments

It was launched by E-Soft in 2009 with the initial investment from

the company. As the entrepreneurs were young and the idea was
new in Nepal, it was tough to pitch in investors for the start-up.
However, they were successful in getting Laxmi Bank on board to
start with. Now different investors are keen on investing as it has
grown multiple folds and has a good future prospect. The startup
has received the largest investment in Nepal’s tech industry from
the most prestigious media group “Kantipur Media group”.

Employee and Competitors

e-Sewa currently has around 31 employees. It has also helped
several people get business through its counter across the country.
This has helped people not having internet connectivity to enjoy its
service through their counter service. They have been able to reach
the rural unbanked population and also provide additional income to
families operating e-Sewa centers.

Mobile wallets like Khalti Digital wallet, IME pay, Prabhu Pay, ipay
Nepal are its main competitors. However, Mr. Dhakal believes in not
getting intimidated by competitors instead have a solid strategy to
beat them through excellent service. E-Sewa is still leading due it’s
long-standing goodwill in the market despite cut-throat competition
among e-payment platform.

Marketing Strategy
e-Sewa has an excellent marketing strategy with a focus on social
media, webinars, sponsored events, awareness activities, offers,
and contests. It does offer a value proposition to its customer and
also awareness to bring in more customers. It has tied up with
various banks for advertisement and marketing. It keeps bringing
offers like cashback offers, referral offers to lure customers. It also
does indirect marketing via the blog.
Number of People fallowing e-Sewa on various social media
platforms shows that it has stayed relevant over the years and is
quite in the game:
Facebook: 388,947
Instagram: 40.1k
Twitter: 8365

Business Challenges

It was not a bed of roses for e-Sewa to start online payment

gateway back in 2009 in a country like Nepal where internet
penetration was as low as 2%. It was a task to bring investors and
users on board as they could hardly trust in the vision of young
entrepreneurs in their 20’s. It is still a challenge to reach rural Nepal
as most of them do not have smartphones and internet connectivity.
Government regulations like not allowing the use of credit cards for
international purchases pose a great challenge for e-Sewa to
establish itself in the global market. People still prefer cash over
digital transactions. However, in spite of all these and few other
business dips, e-Sewa has been successful in making solid marks
and presence in Nepalese market.

Future of e-Sewa
As Nepal is willing to head towards the digital economy with
encouraging government policy, almost every budget, e-Sewa has
great potential and prospects in flourishing in the almost untapped
digital market of Nepal. It is sure to receive various investment and
partnership offers from various international and national investors
given the milestone it has achieved in the last decade. With an
experience of over a decade and investment from biggest media
houses like Kantipur bringing more than just money on board, e-
Sewa will emerge to serve most Nepalese ensuring more security,
reliability, and efficiency in the coming days as Mr. Dhakal
envisions.