Karmic Labs CEO Sees Dash To Cash Flow Apps

Karmic Labs operates at the intersection between payments and Software-as-a-Service. As companies look to streamline operative tasks, there’s been a movement to make reimbursement, among other cash flow applications, easier within an enterprise. PYMNTS spoke with Ryan Weidenmiller, the cofounder and chief executive officer of Karmic Labs, to get a sense of how businesses are moving to manage operations in a more fluid, and mobile, manner.

Let’s talk first about cash flow apps. They’re becoming quite popular. Do you think businesses are shifting in the direction of running their operations entirely on their phones?

RW: Yes. Very few cash flow apps have been built the way our APIs (application program interfaces) work. Our extensible API configuration enables us — and those using our API — to quickly evolve with future business needs. Therefore, yes, as the workforce in demographic changes to include more millennials versus baby boomers, it’s pretty clear that more and more people continue to manage not only their businesses, but all sorts of aspects of their lives, on a more convenient device.

Karmic just came out with Dash. A service of office-automated financing tools and real-time money transfer came out in beta phase in April. Can you share some of the results from that beta testing as well as the progress you made since?

RW: We’re still a private company, and we can’t disclose all the details. But the results are highly encouraging — not only for us but also for FIS, which we built the API structure on top of. And they also use our API for their card program, which is now available for financial institutions as well.

When will we see the next phase of Dash you think?

RW: For the next phase of Dash, I think we’ll see many more configurable applications. We’ll soon start to open up other services on office platforms to other select partners.

Generally about Karmic: What part of the ecosystem would you say that Karmic most disrupts? Which part does it most complement, and why?

RW: The way we look at it is, we symbiotically alter the processors’ phase. As we build our extensible API, part of the service on top of an existing system, we reimagine how cards should work, enabling cards with more features than traditional programs. So we naturally see substitution versus other card programs.

We made it easier for business software to service applications to integrate with our platform, so we often see substitution of other card current and business application to that aspect. And through FIS in the partnership, their financial institutions can also participate in the new service and tools from the platform.

What can you tell us is next for Karmic Labs?

RW: I think we’ll see many more configurable applications emerge from the payment layer, and we’ll soon start to open up aspects of our platform to other select partners. So we think it’s a pretty exciting time for new services to emerge from the payment layer on the issuance side tied in to other applications.