Two Years of Alaan

A lot has happened in the last two years since we introduced Alaan; we launched our mobile apps, became part of the Y Combinator family, grew 10x year on year, and opened offices in Dubai (UAE), Bengaluru (India), and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). However, what makes me ecstatic is the fact that we now have 1000+ businesses using Alaan on a day-to-day basis. For founders, there is no bigger validation than creating a product that people want. 

It is both an opportunity and a responsibility, and our A-Team is ready for both. Before I share our upcoming plans, I want to share the why behind Alaan. 

Why Alaan?

Finance is one of the oldest and most important functions to exist, yet it is often neglected. It stays behind the scenes, does much of the work, and is usually the last one to adopt the latest technology. As for finance professionals, most people spend time doing repetitive things when they can do much more. 

On the other side of the coin are employees—people who spend. The situation here is not great either. Traditionally, there are two ways to spend: either spend out of your pocket or get petty cash. Both are time-consuming and laborious. Employees have to collect receipts for every purchase, store them, file them, submit them, and then wait for approval. 

It is an outdated system that doesn’t work for either party. We created Alaan to simplify the process for everyone: the finance team and the employees. 

Our journey so far…

In 2021, we came up with the idea of Alaan. We wanted to help people; we knew why but were looking for how. Parthi and I spent many months asking questions – what problems do finance teams face, where do finance teams spend their most time, how can automation help, and how can we provide convenience to employees without compromising control for employers?  

We launched in August 2022, after almost a year of building. Since then, we have steadily built Alaan, achieving a few critical milestones along the way:

We integrated with almost all major accounting softwares, so finance teams can easily add expense entries to books of accounts and close them faster. 

We launched Alaan intelligence to automate repetitive tasks (e.g., categorising expenses), identify spending trends, and mitigate the risk of fraud. 

Next, we introduced Apple Pay and Google Pay on Alaan so people can make payments anytime, anywhere, without carrying their cards or wallets. By doing this, we also became the first B2B fintech to have Apple Pay in the Middle East.   

We signed a landmark five-year deal with VISA to help drive the cashless agenda of the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.   

We also made our mobile apps so powerful that admins could issue new cards, add more funds, or approve requests, all from their mobile phones. 

During this time, we topped the G2 rankings and became the #1 Expense Management Platform for mid-market companies globally. 

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Our immediate focus 

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1. Alaan Intelligence (AI)

We are committed to going beyond the AI hype and truly leveraging technology to help Alaan customers do a lot more in less time. 

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2. Product Expansion

We plan to introduce Bill Pay soon, which will allow our customers to pay invoices using account transfers.

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3. Market Expansion

Responding to our customers' needs, we plan to launch Alaan soon in KSA, where many of our clients have a presence. More to come soon!

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This is it from us, this time. 

Signing off,

Karun