Aniket Doegar’s vision for Haqdarshak was to create a network of ‘government scheme consultants’ for Indians, similar to how Life Insurance Corporation of India developed a network of insurance agents across the country.
Founded in 2016, Bengaluru-based Haqdarshak provides a ‘Yojana’ card to blue-collar workers, farmers, and factory employees, giving them access to Union government social security programmes as a protective layer for their lives.
Haqdarshak was picked by the elite jury of The ET Startup Awards as the winner of the Social Enterprise category, which recognises a startup that best embodies the ‘double bottom-line’ model of combining profit and public good.
A profitable and scaled-up business model, strategic corporate partnerships and a business-to-business revenue generation approach played key roles in Haqdarshak’s success.
ETtechDiscover the stories of your interest
But generating revenue is often challenging in this sector. In FY24, Haqdarshak reported revenue of Rs 35 crore with a net profit of Rs 47 lakh. The company aims to close FY25 with revenue ranging from Rs 55 crore to Rs 70 crore.
Also Read | ET Startup Awards 2024: Lenskart bags top honours, a look at the winners
In 2012-13, during his time as a fellow at Teach For India, Doegar realised that access to social schemes was a major issue in the country. While teaching in rural schools, he noticed a widespread lack of awareness about social security measures among students and their families.
“I had wanted to build a Wikipedia for government schemes, but that wouldn’t have reached last-mile Indians… So, I developed an agent network through Haqdarshak to serve every Indian using an assisted model,” Doegar told ET in an interview.
From 2016 to 2018, Haqdarshak survived on grants from the government’s Digital India and Startup India initiatives, along with an initial seed funding of around Rs 1.5 crore. “In a way, our company was born from government schemes. I didn’t have personal capital, and these funds helped us get through the first two years,” Doegar said.
By 2018, the company shifted to a B2B model, partnering with large corporations like the Godrej Group, JSW Group and Tata Power to provide social security services to their employees. “Corporations would pay us a service fee and, in return, we would offer their employees better access to social security schemes,” Doegar said.
Also Read | ET Startup Awards’ greatest hits: a decade of spotting winners
Haqdarshak has steadily scaled up, now having a 600-member team, serving around 7 million beneficiaries, and collaborating with over 150 companies.
Doegar aims to expand the beneficiary base to 10 million and add 30 more corporate partners by the end of the fiscal year. While the business model is revenue generating, the sector is a challenging one. The net operating margin for Haqdarshak is expected to be in the 4-5% range.
However, Doegar is developing financial services through the Yojana payment card and hopes to double this margin with banking revenue contributing to the top line. Though the company has relied on grant funding and support from early impact investors, it seeks to bring a strategic investor on board. “This kind of business cannot be built within a five-year timeline, which is why I am not keen on securing venture funding. Patient capital from family offices or large corporate partners would be ideal,” Doegar said.