Dubai
Dubai-based start-up Bayzat aims to become the one-stop shop for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) looking to optimise health insurance and find smart HR solutions.
Founded in 2013, Bayzat has already made it to the Forbes list of Top 100 Startups in the Arab World 2017.
Palestinian-American entrepreneur Talal Bayaa is the CEO and co-founder of Bayzat and has worked for private equity and corporate finance firms prior to setting up his own business. Before this he worked for private equity and corporate finance firms, followed by two years at an investment bank.
“I have been in the GCC since 1992 in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Dubai, and then came back in 2008 to Dubai for university,” he said.
After seeing an opportunity in the financial products market and having a discussion with his co-founder Brian Habibi about how competitive the UAE financial services sector is, he said they also noted it was extremely fragmented, both banking and insurance, and the first idea which came to his mind was to make it easier for people to find different options.
“That made us launch our first version of Bayzat, which was just an aggregator at that time. We started looking deeper into the experience around medical insurance. We saw that lot of problems we can help solve for SMEs for their employees. That is when we started to shift to the app we are today,” he said.
Now, in less than two minutes, he said a company can compare real-time pricing of more than 100 policies, buy a policy that suits their needs and cut more than half of the processing time.
“We go to companies and give them the HR platform at no cost where they can manage medical insurance, time offs, alerts, employee records and payroll. It automates a lot of processes and improving their experience for their employees. It is a user-friendly platform that automate all the processes. The employees use the mobile app for play slips, submit leave requests, what is covered in the medical insurance, etc,” he said.
Bayzat don’t provide insurance policies, they have tie ups with many companies and get brokerage fees.
“As the companies transacts on different modules, we make money. We have around 800 clients with 19,000 employees,” he said.
The company has raised more than $12 million in funding so far since inception.
“Typically, SMEs with staff between 20 and 100 don’t have the budget to invest in HR solutions. We are trying to push automation into our customers and among insurance companies as well. We are seeing definitely a drive to use more cloud-based solutions to make it more accessible to companies and employees. There is no point in continuing doing the processes manually,” he said.
Moreover, he said that HR departments spend more than 70 per cent of their time doing administration work and answering questions about company benefits.
“SMEs are big hesitant to spend money these days to hire more people but our solution will ease more pain and give their employees a better experience. Insurance have become commoditised, so that it means that customers are looking for different options that are available on the market. Because it is commoditised, we are able to offer at the same market price,” he said.
Even though the company operates in all the emirates, he said that 80 per cent of its business comes from Dubai.
“We are planning to spread wings to other Middle East and African markets towards the end of the year, especially Saudi Arabia and South Africa. We have to raise more money when we are entering other markets,” he said.
Company profile
Name: Bayzat
Sector: marketplace
Year Founded: 2013
Founders: Talal Bayaa and Brian Habibi
Funding: $12m +
Employees: 105
