About Us - Find Out How It All Started

"Instore queueing costs the global retail sector more than $200 billion annually. Wouldn't it be great to eliminate this?"

Inception

How it all started

The idea for MishiPay originated when Mustafa Khanwala, CEO and Founder, waited in a queue at a supermarket for 20 minutes to buy a single can of soda. Frustrated, he thought there must be a better way to do this, for both stores and their customers. And thus, the journey began...

Milestones

MishiPay's Achievements

Our CEO, Mustafa Khanwala, waits in a queue for 20 minutes to purchase a single can of soda. The idea for MishiPay is born.

The first MishiPay prototype is created.

Alongside Mustafa Khanwala, Tanvi Bhardwaj joins MishiPay as Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

MishiPay works with menswear retailer and retail technology testing platform 'The Dandy Lab' in December 2015 and the project runs until February 2016.

The first partnership for MishiPay was developed with Cisco UK.

MishiPay also moved from minimum viable product (MVP) to market-ready product.

MishiPay joins IDEALondon, a post-accelerator centre run by Cisco, UCL Engineering and EDF Energy.

MishiPay receives the first stage of external funding from Manchester University and UCL.

MishiPay wins its first commercial deal, deploying at the Deloitte 'Store of the Future' in London.

MishiPay wins Mayor of London award and is shortlisted for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology 'Top Startup' award.

EIT name MishiPay as one of the 10 best start-ups in a pan-European competition.

MishiPay begins pre-seed round with super angels and prominent angel investors in India.

MishiPay begins deployments across the globe in demonstration stores and builds partnerships with Cisco US, Echangeur BNP Paribas, Weshop Germany.

MishiPay wins an exciting commercial deal with Dufry.

MishiPay is invited to join Cisco's LaunchPad programme.

MishiPay is one of 8 UK startups selected by the UK Department of International Trade (DIT) to be part of a mission to show the growing strength and innovation of retail technology in the UK.

Mishipay raises £2 million in funding from VC's including Nauta Capital and Commerce Ventures.

MishiPay launches a large-scale deployment in France with Leroy Merlin - the world's third largest global DIY retailer.

Media Markt choose MishiPay to develop the mobile self-checkout solution for Saturn Express - its first cashier-less store - located in Austria.

MishiPay launches its non-RFID journey solution supported by a new, market-leading dashboard.

Alison Conway joins MishiPay as Chief Operating Officer in June. She is a retail executive with 20+ years of experience. The MishiPay team expands significantly and we move out of IdeaLondon after two years of fantastic support.

In December 2018 MishiPay went live in Saturn in Hamburg - the world's largest consumer electronics store.

Our Founder & CEO, Mustafa Khanwala, and our CTO, Tanvi Bhardwaj, are named on the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 List. The list celebrates young disruptors bringing new ideas to Europe.

Decathlon Scan & Go is launched with Decathlon in the Netherlands; our first national rollout.

We raise £3.5m in our Series A funding round, with investment from American Express, United Ventures and Nauta Capital.

In December we won the prestigious Institut du Commerce Connecté (ICC) ‘Startup of the Year’ award! We were selected from a group of over 100 contenders by a panel of industry experts that looked to acknowledge “the most promising start-ups in the retail ecosystem”.