How Honey Homes automates cash management and extends runway

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in the Bay Area, Honey Homes is building the home services company that the $500B home maintenance industry has never had. Homeowners or renters can join as members to get access to a dedicated handyperson, who’s vetted, trained, and available on demand to handle everything from installing a smart door bell to resealing a bathtub to repairing a backyard deck. The company’s business model treats home maintenance like a primary care practice: one go-to person knows you, knows your home, and is there when you need them.

Today, Honey Homes’ labor force includes nearly 100 handymen and operates in multiple metropolitan areas, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Chicago.

Before founding Honey Homes, CEO and de facto CFO Vishwas Prabhakara was the COO of Digit, a consumer fintech. As a business executive, he says, “I've been in and around the banking world using everything from JP Morgan to SVB to Wells Fargo to Bank of America.”  So, he’s well-acquainted with the time-sapping frustrations that come with legacy tools and knows how much time outdated infrastructure can cost a company.

At every business that Prabhakara worked for previously, the company’s banking platform led to extra admin work, such as authorizing even routine transactions and navigating labyrinthine processes. “At Digit, we used to bang our heads on legacy bank wires,” Prabhakara says. “It was the worst part of our days, but we had to do it.” His experiences with traditional banks made him think that there had to be a better way.

When Prabhakara started Honey Homes in 2021, he knew he wanted to use a modern business banking platform. So, he opened a Mercury account, based on a recommendation from a friend, and noticed improvements immediately. “I was able to get set up and get everything running in hours.” The features that traditional banks made difficult — like initiating a wire, searching transaction history, or downloading a bank letter — were simple. “You can just say, ‘I know what outcome I need: I need this report,’ and it just works.” Finally, he had found a financial solution that worked seamlessly with his business.

When Honey Homes raised its $9 million Series A in 2023, the proceeds landed in the company’s Mercury account and Prabhakara didn’t leave them sitting in checking. With one click, he moved the funds into Mercury Treasury, where  they could effortlessly earn a higher yield. “That’s been pretty magical,” Prabhakara says. “It gave us three or four months more runway.”  

At prevailing rates, this idle capital generated $10,000 to $15,000 a month. For an early-stage startup, that much money can be a meaningful extension of how long the company can operate before needing to raise again.

Honey Homes runs payroll weekly. With nearly 100 W-2 employees (the handymen), a missed payroll would be a serious problem. To avoid issues, Prabhakara runs a three-tier system: (1) funds sit in Treasury at the top, (2) then move to savings in the middle tier, and (3) flow into checking, as needed. 

Every day, Mercury’s auto-transfer rules evaluate the company’s balances and make adjustments. This keeps their checking account funded with only the amount that's needed. That way, they can keep earning as much yield as possible in Treasury^x. This setup gives Prabhakara peace of mind. He notes, “You never have to worry about your checking having too low a balance for the payroll run that happens on Friday.”

Prabhakara handles Honey Homes’ finances himself, with Pilot as the company’s outsourced accounting firm. He closes the books monthly, models cash flows, and monitors balances — and Mercury is the tool he uses to do all of it. Thanks to an integration with Mercury, Pilot can pull transaction data directly, without Prabhakara needing to serve as the intermediary. And the aforementioned auto-transfer rules that he set up mean that he doesn’t get bogged down in the routine admin work of moving money.

This instinct to maximize yield and automate movement has carried over into Prabhakara’s  personal life, too. He has started moving his personal finances into Mercury Personal, and he’s even set up accounts for each of his kids to replace the ones that they’d had at a legacy bank. (Setting those up, he says, took just a click each.) For both his personal and business banking, needs, he chose a provider that pretty much runs itself, so he doesn't have to.

Since consolidating its financial operations on Mercury, Honey Homes has been able to:

• Get up and running in hours, not days by opening a Mercury account with none of the friction of setting up a traditional bank account. 
• Extend runway by three to four months by moving Series A proceeds into Treasury from day one instead of letting funds sit idle in checking. 
• Run payroll for nearly 100 W-2 employees without interruption by maintaining a three-tier cash stack that keeps the checking account funded at exactly the right level for Friday payroll. 
• Eliminate manual cash-management work by using auto-transfer rules to move money between tiers automatically. 
• Simplify accounting oversight by giving Pilot, the company's outsourced accounting firm, direct access to transaction data through Mercury's integration. 

Prabhakara serves as the sole operator managing his company’s smooth-running banking systems, with nearly zero administrative overhead. Instead of getting stuck managing slow, frustrating legacy systems, he can focus on building a home services business like no other.