Exclusive: Payments firm CheersOye winds up ops after licensing out backend tech

CheersOye, a startup which pivoted to digital payments after starting out as a social gifting platform, has wound up operations.

Co-founder Bhavna Lalchandani, who also served as chief executive officer of CheersOye, told TechCircle that the firm had wound up operations over the past month.

“We got an offer for licensing it out,” she said. “So it was an internal strategic decision by the management and investors.”

Lalchandani said that CheersOye’s technology has been licensed to a startup in the health space. She did not disclose the name of the startup but said that a part of CheersOye’s tech team has been merged with it. 

CheersOye’s backend technology will now be used as a payment and loyalty platform for pharmacies, hospitals and health centres.

The firm’s sales team has been disbanded. she added.

Lalchandani has moved on to music streaming platform Saavn, which is in the process of being merged with Reliance Industries’ JioMusic, as director of brand solutions.

CheersOye, owned by Mumbai-based iPanache Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2015 by Lalchandani and Rahul Shrivastava.

In September 2016, the startup had raised close to $500,000 (Rs 3.35 crore then) in an angel round of funding.

At the time, CheersOye was social payments and gifting platform that allowed users to pay via its app for personalised experiences, and send such gifts to a friend’s mobile instantly via e-vouchers on SMS or e-mail.

The startup pivoted its business model to digital payments towards the end of 2016. It launched a digital wallet called CO! Money shortly after the Union government devalued 86% of the currency in circulation in November 2016.

Before launching CheersOye, Lalchandani worked at search engine Yahoo for six years. She was responsible for advertising monetisation, revenue growth and had held the position of India lead-analytics.

Shrivastava had worked as a digital marketing expert with Zee Digital before co-founding CheersOye. Lalchandani said he had quit the firm nearly a year-and-a-half ago.

He is currently the chief strategy officer of digital news portal LatestLY.com, according to his LinkedIn profile.