It used to be common to carry cash around, but now credit cards and modern digital wallets make it difficult to keep more than a few dollars in a physical wallet.
Unfortunately, many of us aren’t prepared to show our gratitude, especially when traveling, to give a cash tip to someone who cleans our room or brings our car.
Austin-based Grazzy wants to change that through an instant payment and tax compliance platform that allows employees to leave tips for frontline workers with same-day access. We also provide recruitment and retention tools for service-based employers such as hotels, bars, restaurants and salons, as well as financial wellness tools for their employees.
Grazzy founder and CEO Russell Lemmer told TechCrunch that he is one of those travelers who experience great service at hotels.
“While in Las Vegas, I left my bag with the clerk and wanted to tip him, but I couldn’t,” Lemmer recalls. “I heard an agent telling a colleague, ‘This is the seventh time in a row.’ I was embarrassed and started thinking of a solution.”
Russell Lemmer, Founder and CEO of Grazzy Image credit: Grazy
As Lemmer surveyed others, he found he wasn’t alone. Most of the people he spoke to, he used to be unable to tip because he didn’t have cash, mobile wallet heavy he was also a user.
He started working on Grazzy in September 2021, which he said resulted in an app that took a “business-to-business approach to Venmo” and allowed people to show their appreciation to people they didn’t know personally in a seamless way. I was.
Lemmer also helps employers reduce the hourly worker turnover rate, said to be a $100 billion problem in the United States, by providing ways for employees to earn more and save. I wanted to help. He’s not the only one. As the global pandemic exacerbated an already tough situation for frontline workers, other startups have brought in technology to solve certain aspects. For example, He’s Anthill connecting people who’ve never sat at a desk, SnapShift to handle HR, and AskNicely to deliver his customer experience.
Here’s how Grazzy works: Guests can use property-branded her QR codes to tip staff instantly, and the Grazzy Direct feature gives staff instant access to tips. Grazzy makes money from processing fees.
The platform also monitors and tracks money to help businesses comply with taxes, while also seeing wage increases and their impact on employees.
According to Lemmer, Grazzy has cut down on the typical waiting time for tips on credit card transactions, eliminating the need to tip regularly or cut weekly salaries. In addition, Remer believes digital chips will increase employee income by an average of 20% by providing an alternative to traditional cash.
Grazzy started working with its first large hotel client last July and has now grown to about a dozen clients. It’s still in its early stages and started generating revenue last month, Lemmer said.
The company today announced a $4.25 million seed funding round led by Next Coast Ventures and Tuesday Capital. This brings the total funding to date to $6.8 million.
Lemmer plans to inject new funding into accelerated customer growth across additional hotel brands, operating groups, restaurant groups, salons, and technology development so that Grazzy will be integrated with leading operating systems.
In the meantime, he’s tracking a hotel operations group that manages hundreds of properties and moving forward with a three-year plan that includes building additional financial wellness features for its employees.
“We want to start layering better ways to save and spend,” Lemmer said. “We feel like it’s the next step after they make more money and have access to more money in the same day. It is a recruitment tool for employers to stay.”
