Founded in 2016, by Piyush Peshwani and Vineet Bansal, OnGrid is a digital platform for background checks and verification. The startup has run more than 20 million background checks.
When were you founded & What is the product/service you provide?
OnGrid is headquartered in Gurugram and was started in 2016.
At OnGrid, we are solving the problem of lack of trust by using technology solutions for verification, KYC, and background checks, so that organizations and service providers can onboard individuals seamlessly.
Eventually, our vision is that individuals, including those from the unorganized sector, are able to use their credentials(verified information), with complete choice and consent, in order to access jobs and services.
OnGrid has become a reputed name in the space of background verifications and checks, having served over 1000 clients across multiple industries, and having completed over 25 million checks.
OnGrid offers 40+ verifications and background checks, that can be instant (API responses), digital and near-real-time such as employment or education checks, as well as physical checks on the ground such as address verification, police verification, etc.
Product lines:
OnGrid – Our flagship platform for background verifications, which is used to verify white-collar employees or blue-collar professionals and contractors, as well as loan applicants.
eLockr – Platform for issuance of credentials to ex-employees, thus empowering them to establish trust easily and instantly.
Gridlines – APIs for instant KYC for onboarding of users and customers on various internet platforms.
What is the company’s long and short-term vision? Where do you see your industry going in the next five years?
OnGrid is one of the fastest-growing verification platforms in India serving 1000+ organizations, and aspire to be the number one player in the verifications space in India by 2023.
In 2022, we are also planning a global expansion of all our offerings – OnGrid background verification, eLockr, and Gridlines API suite.
The market is fast growing with an increasing number of use cases (onboarding and verification of candidates and customers across jobs and services).
The global identity verification market size is forecast to grow from USD 8.6 billion in 2021 to USD 18.6 billion by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.6% during 2021-2026.
If you add other components of background verification and trust establishment (other than identity), the market size will grow to an overall number of 30 billion by 2026.
Factors such as the rise of the gig economy, COVID-induced remote work, great resignation, and digital onboarding will be the key catalysts for our business and can potentially expand the addressable market significantly.
In 5 years, we also see that there will be an inversion in the verification methodologies.
We believe that verified credentials will be shared by individuals (candidates) to enroll in a job, product, or service, and they will be in complete control of their own data. We are making investments in that direction.
How did you get inspiration for the Company? How did you go about researching and validating the idea?
We got the inspiration from personal experiences while engaging with service professionals(movers and packers) who delivered an extremely poor experience, and there was no way to address the grievance.
We realized that reputation systems are broken, and India is a high trust-deficit country. With such a diversity of languages, cultures, and belief systems, trust is not something that comes organically.
On one side of this trust gap are the individuals, and on the other side, we have employers and service providers.
Establishing a trust can create a lot of hassle and paperwork for both parties, leading to lost time, high cost, and sometimes lost opportunities for people from landing a job, or getting access to a service.
Is the company funded? If yes, how many rounds & how much funding?
The company raised an angel round of USD 450k at the time of inception and has been profitable since the second year of its operations.
OnGrid currently operates at an annual revenue rate of 5 million dollars and has plans to reach 10 million dollars in FY 2022-23, with healthy EBIDTA margins.
How does the product work & What problems does it solve?
At OnGrid, we are solving the problem of lack of trust by using technology solutions for verification, KYC, and background checks, so that organizations and service providers can onboard individuals seamlessly.
Eventually, our vision is that individuals, including those from the unorganized sector, are able to use their credentials(verified information), with complete choice and consent, in order to access jobs and services.
How does OnGrid work:
OnGrid was established in 2016 with the vision of catalyzing trust and accountability in communities with a trust deficit. Our philosophy has been to enable individuals and organizations to engage in a “less-friction” manner.
OnGrid has become a reputed name in the space of background verifications and checks, having served over 1000 clients across multiple industries, and having completed over 25 million checks.
OnGrid offers 40+ verifications and background checks, that can be instant (API responses), digital and near-real-time such as employment or education checks, as well as physical checks on the ground such as address verification, police verification, etc.
We continue to grow at a rapid pace and have introduced new solutions such as eLockr and Gridlines for making trust establishment and verifications instant, cheaper, and more accurate.
Through eLockr, we want to disrupt the way employment records and income is verified globally.
Instead of taking weeks, we see employment credentials being verified instantly in the future, with the active involvement of the candidate, who is able to get visibility of the credential, exercise her/his choice, and provide explicit consent.
Through Gridlines API stack, we want to enable platforms to onboard users and customers instantly and meet their risk-mitigation and compliance objectives.
These APIs include KYC from an identity standpoint (PAN / Aadhaar / Voter ID / Driving Licence / Passport / Vehicle RC), bank account verification, GST verification, face match and document OCR by use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, COVID vaccination status check, compliance checks such as Aadhaar-PAN or Aadhaar-UAN linking checks, past employment checks through the EPFO infrastructure, etc.
What are your USP and innovation? How are you different from others?
OnGrid’s USP is that we offer a full-stack verification platform that can be used to verify anyone be it white-collar employees, or blue-collar professionals, who work mostly as contractors, or on the payrolls of third-party vendors.
OnGrid offers APIs that can be used to verify and onboard users, customers, loan applicants, merchants, or any service professionals or platform partners.
OnGrid’s solution removes the hassle for HR teams to collect information, documents, or consent, as the candidates can provide this directly on the OnGrid platform, or even on the HRMS platform that integrates with OnGrid APIs.
We have made investments in eLockr that makes employment verification instant, and with the complete consent of the individual. Such a digital infrastructure has been missing in India.
With eLockr, the turnaround time for employment verification today has come down from 1-2 weeks to become instant.
What are some of your competitors & what advantage do you have over them? & Briefly explain your revenue model?
Some of our competitors include First Advantage, Pinkerton, HireRight, and Sterling.
While global BGV players have been operating in India for the last 30 years, OnGrid is fast gaining market share through a focus on higher user experience, higher authenticity and accuracy, better completion rates, process automation, and competitive pricing models.
We build these differentiators by leveraging modern technology systems. Customers are also migrating to OnGrid for better adherence to information security compliances, i.e. information of Indian candidates on Indian soil.
Revenue Model
Our revenue model is based on per candidate, per check.
OnGrid APIs can be integrated with client systems for as low as 1 rupee per API transaction.
Clients can do exhaustive background checks on a prospective employee for a package price of less than INR 1000, which includes digital, physical, and hybrid checks.
What difficulties did you encounter when you started the company & Were you impacted by the Covid outbreak?
One of the key challenges we faced was to convince the best of the talent to join us, as we had not raised any institutional funding.
We had a hard time explaining to talented people that working long-term in a profitable organization can sometimes be a better approach to meeting professional goals and generating wealth.
We did face some challenges due to the COVID outbreak but were able to recover in a few months. Our team is highly resilient and adapts fast to changes.
For example, we launched a digital address verification methodology when we realized that physical visits and letter deliveries were not possible for address verification.
What are your future plans & launches?
OnGrid is one of the fastest-growing verification platforms in India serving 1000+ organizations, and aspire to be the number one player in the verifications space in India by 2023.
In 2022, we are also planning a global expansion of all our offerings – OnGrid background verification, eLockr, and Gridlines API suite.
Our target audiences are HR and product management leaders and managers, who are either onboarding employees or contractors or are onboarding users and customers.
Our product strategy that has worked so far has been to is to identify elegant solutions to complex problems, build those solutions with deep configurability using cutting-edge technology solutions, and win over clients through superior delivery.
These will continue to be core ingredients of our future launches – both features and products.
Current company size, work culture, Hiring Funda
Since its inception in the year 2016, the team has grown to a size of around 200 full-time employees and interns, and a vast PAN-India network of thousands of field verifiers for physical checks.
We want to build a culture where our team plays hard and enjoys winning in the market.
At the same time, we want to be a team that stands with each other during difficult times, both personal and professional.
How did you launch your company when you had just 0 users. Which channels/ tools/strategies worked the most for acquiring the first 100 users?
With initial angel funding and pivot to current business, we first chose to tap into the immense value of our network. We tapped into our network of friends, who were founders, to onboard our first few clients to get the momentum going.
We gradually realized that a business has to be about solving real problems out there, figuring out our own path to scale, generating profits with a purpose, and creating value for employees and shareholders.
We continue to build and operate in a sustainable manner. The vision has evolved over a period of time and we see ourselves addressing a much bigger potential market now.
We believe that with a solid foundation, a robust business model, and a rockstar team, we are rightly positioned to make this vision a reality.
A piece of advice for the readers.
We firmly believe that for an entrepreneur, raising funds can help in expediting business growth, but lack of it must not deter anyone from starting up.
Entrepreneurs can hustle to get the initial set of paying users and clients and focus on fundamentals such as profitability to scale up. The roots of such an organization will definitely be strong.
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Awesome 👌