In a wide-ranging conversation with IMPACT, Santosh Hegde, Head of Marketing, Atlys, unpacks how the travel-tech startup is reshaping the visa experience through a mix of customer insight, AI-led innovation and long-term brand building. He says that 2025 has been a milestone year for the four-year-old company, with rising brand salience and strong business momentum, driven largely by its renewed focus on marketing and content.
Atlys’ mission, he explains, goes beyond visas. The company aims to bridge what he calls a 'global mobility arbitrage,' where an affluent Indian still faces more restrictions travelling abroad than even a low-income individual from countries with stronger passports. This inequity fuels Atlys’ core proposition: making international travel accessible, predictable and anxiety-free.
Hegde identifies three major consumer needs the brand solves for convenience, cognitive load, and certainty of outcome. Visa processes differ sharply across countries, creating confusion and errors for travellers. Atlys simplifies this through digital workflows, reliable information across 120+ destinations, and expert-driven application profiling. The company also backs its promise with a money-back guarantee, ensuring visas are delivered 'on time or on us.'
A major theme across the interview was visa anxiety, which Hegde said dominates the travel planning cycle. While travellers eagerly plan trips, destinations and experiences, uncertainty around visa approvals creates significant stress. Atlys’ campaigns are built around this emotional pain point and highlight the reassurance and predictability the platform offers.
On the marketing front, Atlys follows a clear split: 40% performance marketing to capture users already planning travel and 60% brand marketing to prime future travellers six to eight months before their trip. This balance, Hegde says, ensures stronger conversion when the audience becomes “in-market.”
He also highlights surprising consumer behaviour emerging from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Over half of Atlys’ business now comes from beyond India’s top metros, fuelled by strong aspirations and increasing interest in non-traditional destinations. The company’s Rs 1 visa trial event revealed significant pent-up demand, including a 22× surge in applications for South Africa during the safari season.
Hegde acknowledges that customer grievances, often stemming from visa delays beyond Atlys’ control, tend to surface sharply on social media. With thousands of visas processed daily, even small error rates become highly visible. This reality has pushed the company to make customer service its highest internal priority, shifting key customer touchpoints from automation back to human teams to reduce anxiety and improve responsiveness.
A significant portion of the discussion focused on AI, which Hegde describes as central to Atlys’ scale—from document verification to customer support via GenAI bots. An AI-driven mock US visa interview tool, which analyses tone, hesitation and clarity, has become one of its most appreciated features. The company is now working on agentic AI, aiming for a future where users can request a visa conversationally and have the entire process handled autonomously.
Looking ahead, Atlys plans to deepen its presence in the UAE, UK, US and Australia, expand into tier-2/3 India, and scale adjacent offerings such as travel insurance and international connectivity. These pillars, Hegde says, will define Atlys’ next phase of growth.
Watch the full interaction video here:
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