Akshat Jain - Blog , Business BreakdownsAkshat Jain - Blog , Business Breakdownshttps://www.akshatjain.com/blogs/business-breakdownsSun, 23 Nov 2025 09:32:21 -0800http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[Digital.... Solar?]]>https://www.akshatjain.com/blogs/post/Receiving-business-payments-from-abroad1 ]]>

Boarding passes, shopping, meetings, payments - It's interesting how most things are digital these days. Even solar! ☀

Recently, I came across SundayGrids - they claim to make solar investments easy for those without a rooftop. They have approached it differently.
Business model:
1. SundayGrids partners with a host to intall a solar plant in their premises;
2. Investors "reserve" power generation from that project for 15 years;
3. Power generated from that plant is sold to the host at a cheap(er), fixed rate for 15 years (PPA + BOT);
4. These proceeds are repaid to investors, but in the form of "credits" (linked to actual energy production). Credits can be used by the investor to pay their own electricity bill! (payment via SundayGrid's portal)
5. After 15 years, the host gets the plant for free (most panels have a life of 25 years).

How are the credits calculated?
• You reserve space in an available project;
• You're then allotted pro-rata rights of the power generated;
• You're paid ₹5.15 in credits for every unit kWh of energy produced by that project.

I took a trial of the Cosmos 145 project:

   
• I reserved 3277W at a reservation value of ₹1,60,000. The reservation is actually a one-time fee paid to SundayGrids rather than an SPV-investment structure.
• Anyway, thumb rule in India is 1000W of solar produces 4.5 units a day normalized across seasons. So we can estimate 3277 W to produce 13-14 units a day.
• At ₹5.15 credits per unit, this is ₹2000 in monthly savings.
• Works out to a 12% IRR.
• I'm taking a look at my dashboard and it says in 2 days my Cosmos 145 reservation has produced 43 units & earned ₹226 in credits. They estimate this month's credits to be anywhere between ₹2100-2800. Not bad!



Benefits to the Host:
• Cheap power without any CapEx;
• Zero maintenance costs for 15 years;
• Gets the plant free from year 16

Benefits to the Investor:
• Gets a neat 11-12% IRR. But the structure synthetically feels like a net metering arrangement;
• There's a tax angle too - since these credits are like a cashback, they are not liable to tax! They just have to pay their electricity bill via the SundayGrids portal (via BBPS) and apply the credits;
• The tax angle might make it slightly more lucrative compared to vanilla fractional solar financing opportunities which generally give a pre-tax IRR of 12-15%.

The risks:
• This is not a SPV structure, so in case SundayGrids goes under, its assets (the solar plants) will also be liquidated. Ideally, such projects could be structured as an SPV to protect investors from liquidation events;

If SundayGrids can better address this risk, then they have a compelling solution for house owners to benefit from solar without the hassles of financing, installation, approvals and maintenance.
]]>Fri, 08 Mar 2024 21:51:42 +0530<![CDATA[Getting paid from an international client?]]>https://www.akshatjain.com/blogs/post/Receiving-business-payments-from-abroad If you've ever exported goods or services, you'd know its not a smooth process.  Share bank details -> wait for transfers -> deal with pape ]]>
If you've ever exported goods or services, you'd know its not a smooth process. Share bank details -> wait for transfers -> deal with paperwork and on top of it pay 5-10% in fees across layers (SWIFT + intermediary bank + forex markup + conversion + FIRC issuance fees).

Or use PayPal but lose 5-10% in fee across layers!

This is a big pain point for (1) freelancers & services providers and (2) SME exporters. The numbers are big - India sends out goods & services worth $800bn and a sizeable chunk (>25%) of this is by SMEs.

The traditional banking / PayPal setup looks like this:
• Fees: 5-10% of the transaction value;
• Time: anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks, depending on the currency pairs, countries & banks involved;
• Documentation: manually submit PO & Invoices to the bank + follow-up for Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate (FIRC) issuance (required for compliance).

This has opened up an opportunity for Fintechs like Skydo, Cashfree (Global collections) and Xflow to provide a cheaper, faster alternative to receive business payments from abroad.

Here's what the solution looks like (taking Skydo's example): 
• You signup with Skydo & they open a collection a/c for you in different countries/currencies;
• You share the collection bank details with the sender, who will do a local wire transfer (equivalent to our NetBanking or IMPS);
• Skydo reconciles, collects the funds & settles the proceeds in INR to your regular bank account within 48 hours.

These companies typically operate with a PA-CB (Payment Aggregator - Cross Border) license, which means they are authorized to aggregate B2B forex inward payments into an Export Collection Account and then settle it your local bank account.


Unlike direct SWIFT transfers, where each transaction has to be negotiated by each receiver with respective banks, players like Skydo have a volume edge. So they're able to pass on mid-market pricing and a flat $19-29 fee. Most other players too work within a 1-2% fee.

Compare this with PayPal, Payoneer or banks, where you pay a 4-9% processing fee and 1-3% in conversion rates. At scale & frequency, the savings become material!

The only major drawback is that your client will have to pay via wire transfer & will not be able to pay via a credit card. For large value transactions, one may argue that wire transfer is a safer option in terms of chargeback frauds. 

What can make the proposition more valuable?
If a really low-cost credit card stack can be built on top of this, it may open up a lot more use cases. I'm thinking: an international payments option for Indian Shopify stores?

]]>Fri, 08 Mar 2024 21:51:42 +0530