For most bootstrapped startups, using web and operational services can be expensive. From A/B testing to creating business cards to email, company expenses add up. Enter Y Combinator startup Anyperk, which aims to provide companies and startups with discounts on web services.
Basically, Anyperk, which is the first Japanese team funded by Y Combinator, allows startups to access discounts on services like business card creation from Moo, A/B testing from Optimizely, payments processing from Braintree, email delivery service from Mailgun and more.
Startups actually have to apply and be vetted to start using deals. The criteria for deciding which startups are eligible to use Anyperk is whether they’ve received some funding, ranging from seed to a Series A.
For now the deals are free to use and access once you sign up for Anyperk. Unsurprisingly, startups are already flocking to the site. In the past month, more than 500 startups registered with Anyperk, accessing over 80 deals available on the site. Anyperk says that they track traffic sent to the deal providers so they know which deals are most popular, and which ones to continue featuring on the site.
The company is starting with web services as deals because it is easier to offer more broad discounts to startups and companies, and will eventually expand to other types of offers in the future.
While Anyperk is planning to keep the deals free for businesses, the startup’s business model will focus on charging for a service to manage deals for company employees. Anyperks would power deals for computers, mobile services and more, package these deals, and sell this to startups who want to offer perks for employees. Eventually, the startup would like to manage employee benefits, similar to the way that Betterworks manages perks for startups and companies.
Anyperk’s founders, Taro Fukuyama, Atsu Takahashi, and Sunny Tsang; have a history of starting successful startups. Takahashi co-founded Nobot, smartphone ad-network company acquired for $19 million by Japanese company KDDI.
Clearly there is a demand for these types of deals for bootstrapped startups, and Anyperk isn’t having any trouble grabbing interest from companies and web services. Investors have also signed up—the startup has raised funding from Ben Lewis (co-founder of Tapjoy and Karma), Digital Garage, Start Fund, SV Angels and Andreessen Horowitz.
TechCrunch readers can enter the code “TC12” when they are asked “how did they hear about us” during signup for special consideration in using Anyperk.
