When it comes to managing expenses and bills, especially when one has low funds. This becomes really pressurizing and people start looking for sources to lend money from. In such situations, borrowing from friends and family could be embarrassing and hectic. And depending upon banks could cost major interests. So where should we look?
Well by acknowledging these situations and deals, online money lending apps are developed. These provide the facility to lend money through digital platforms without any further issues.
Multiple companies are providing the facility of offering loads immediately with minimal competitive interest rates and required tenure durations. These companies facilitate the loan very easily and quickly as compared to usual bank loans.
With keeping such progress in mind, India has developed numerous digital lending companies whose finances can manage smoothly. India is evolving to a great extent in the digital sector and financial inclusion. The country has cash for transactions. But with the evolving method of development and modernization, India is shifting toward a cashless economy. To understand its development more prominently, let’s look at the top 10 digital lending platforms in India.
Best Digital Lending Platforms in India – Lendingkart Website
The prominent digital lending platform, Lendingkart was founded in 2014. It works by offering different capital loans and company loans vary from small to medium-sized businesses across India. They are widely famous for providing capital completely through an online platform and require minimum documentation for the procedure to begin.
For young entrepreneurs, managing their finances becomes quite hectic and it deviates them from focusing on their business growth. That’s why Lendingkart has taken the initiative to make capital funding easily available for entrepreneurs so they don’t have to worry about the cash-flow gaps. Lendingkart is a company established in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Bangalore. But, its services are accessible throughout the whole of India.
2. Pine Labs
Lending Platform
Pine Labs
Loan Amount
From ₹25,000 to ₹5 Lakhs
Loan Tenure
90 Days
Best Digital Lending Platforms in India – Pine Labs Website
Pine Labs is one of the leading fintech companies in India established in 1998 that provides digital lending services. The company is quite famous for its incredible facility of transforming the mobile NFC into a card machine and activating the service of accepting all types of payment digitally which also includes the ‘Tap n Pay’ card as well.
Pine Labs have brought tons of services for the retailers including multi-channel, different payment options, brand offerings, risk assessments, analytics, and many more.
It provides working capital loans for small to medium businesses. Their loan application process is quite simple and you can apply for a business loan through their website or their app myPlutus.
Pine Labs’ services and technologies are widely preferred and used by more than 100,00 merchants all across India and also, many Asian companies. According to the estimations, PineLabs’ cloud-based technology has the power of over 350,000 PoS terminals; that too in more than 3,700 cities.
3. MobiKwik
Lending Platform
Mobikwik
Loan Amount
Upto ₹5,00,000
Loan Tenure
6 to 36 Months
Top Loan Aggregators in India – MobiKwik Website
MobiKwik is a very prominent mobile payment company that works by connecting the consumers together with the merchants and many online sellers. The company is established in Gurgaon, Haryana, India.
Mobikwik is a private company that has more than 550 employees. Since the establishment of this company, the company has raised a total of 118 million USD from over 8 funding rounds.
Mobiwik provides instant personal loans. You can download its app and once the loan is approved it will be credited to your wallet.
₹1 Lakh to ₹15 Lakhs (unsecured) or up to ₹2.5 Crores (secured)
Loan Tenure
6 to 48 Months (unsecured), Up to 84 Months (secured)
One of the biggest lending companies, Shiksha Finance, is an education-based finance firm. Shiksha Finance provides the services of funding parents for school fees by reducing the school drop-out rates. It also offers capital to educational institutions for the development of buildings, properties and working capital.
Shiksha Finance has loans that range from INR 10,000 to INR 50,000 with a return duration of 6 to 10 months. The loans which Shiksha Finance provides can be utilized for educational based purposes such as school fees, tuition, luggage and stationary.
5. MoneyTap
Lending Platform
MoneyTap
Loan Amount
Upto ₹5,00,000
Loan Tenure
36 Months
Best Digital Lending Platforms in India – MoneyTap Website
The Bengaluru based lending company, MoneyTap is known for its huge service of offering credit lines for the consumers as their loans, with the partnership with RBL Bank. MoneyTap is now counted among the leading lending businesses. Recently, the company received the license of NBFC for co-lending space together with their lending partners.
MoneyTap has offered many great features among which, the minimal documentation procedure for a personal loan is the most special one. Moreover, its app version also provides the facilities for tracking down your borrowing records.
6. Paytm
Lending Platform
Paytm
Loan Amount
Upto ₹2,00,000
Loan Tenure
6 to 36 Months
Fintech Lending Companies in India – Paytm Website
The biggest digital lending wallet company Paytm is wildly famous in the minds of Indians. The company is established in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Paytm has grown to a great extent and now, millions of downloads have been made.
The development the company has received is breathtaking. It employs more than 9000 people and has a revenue of a total of $118 million. Paytm is highly specialised in online shopping as well.
Best Digital Lending Platforms in India – PolicyBazaar
The company is counted among the top leading online insurance companies, PolicyBazaar was established in the year 2008 and headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India.
It is online life insurance as well as a general insurance aggregator company. PolicyBazaar is very popular among Indians for its incredible services and holdings. It employs over 2500 people and has an annual revenue of $21 million (as estimated in 2017-18).
The current CEO of PolicyBazaar is Yashish Dahiya who is also one of the founders of this company. It has raised around US$ 346 million through 7 funding rounds.
8. Capital Float
Lending Platform
Capital Float
Loan Amount
₹50,00,000
Loan Tenure
Upto 36 Months
Best Digital Lending Platforms in India – Capital Float Website
Capital Float is one of the leading lending companies in India. It is acquired by CapFloat Financial Services. Capital Float is popular for its amazing service of specialised financial loans and business credits.
Capital Float has a partnership with some prominent companies such as Shopclues, Paytm and Uber. The company lends the potential borrower through its system of proprietary loans. Capital Float is now targeting established store owners and small merchants.
9. Faircent
Details
Information
Loan Amount
₹5,00,000
Loan Tenure
6 to 36 Months
Best Digital Lending Platforms in India – Faircent Website
The largest and first Indian peer-to-peer digital lending platform, Faircent is known to be absolutely amazing. It is officially registered by the RBI. It provides a safe marketplace for people to loan money to a borrower. Faircent facilitates the credit to organizations and individuals who are interested in lending money.
Faircent provides the absolutely convenient procedure of lending the required money to those who need it, at reasonable interest rates.
10. KreditBee
Lending Platform
KreditBee
Loan Amount
₹5,00,000
Loan Tenure
6 to 36 Months
Lending Service Providers in India – KreditBee
KreditBee is a Bangalore-based fintech that offers quick personal loans up to INR 2,00,000 for working professionals. Using easy online KYC, the loan process is fast and simple. KreditBee is one of the top lending companies in India.
Backed by trusted investors like ICICI Bank and supported by banks like AU Small Finance, KreditBee serves over 5 million customers.
The process is mostly paperless, sign up on the app, and within 15 minutes, approved loans are transferred instantly to your bank account.
In India, there are many fintech companies that are providing the service of digitally lending money very easily with the minimal documentation procedure. Today, many apps have been developed by these companies to make the transaction of money absolutely susceptible. And for those who require a personal loan or business loan, can easily get one. That’s why we listed these top digital lending companies in India.
FAQs
What are some of the top digital lending companies in India?
Lendingkart, Pinelabs, Mobiwik, Policybazaar, and Paytm are some of the top digital lending companies in India.
How does a lending company work?
Lending companies provide loans to an entity, which is then expected to repay its debt.
How many fintech companies are there in India?
There are around 2,000 fintech companies in India.
India’s financial technology industry has seen an explosive surge in financing over the last several years, with assets totaling more than $8 billion allegedly invested across various stages. India has the world’s highest FinTech rate of adoption. India has 10,200 registered fintech startups in 2024 and is one of the fastest-growing FinTech industries in the world. The Indian FinTech business is expected to be worth $150 billion by 2025.
While Payments and Alternative Finance accounted for more than 90% of investment flows in 2015, there has been a major change toward a more fair distribution of investment across sectors since then, with InsurTechs, WealthTechs, and other areas garnering considerable attention. In India, around 17 Fintechs have been designated as ‘Unicorns.’
Insurance companies throughout the world, particularly in India, have a lot of opportunities to use technology to optimize distribution costs and provide algorithms for personalized pricing. A believer of the same, Varun Dua, in the digital era, is commonly acclaimed for redesigning India’s insurance narrative.
“If you really want to change the plumbing, you will have to start manufacturing it,” is what he says. Varun Dua, the founder and CEO of Acko, is a renowned serial fintech entrepreneur. He co-founded and served as the CEO of one of India’s top online insurance aggregators, Coverfox, before launching Acko in 2016. Investors invested $30 million into Acko even before the formal debut, based on Varun’s proven records.
Varun Dua Biography
Name
Varun Dua
Birth
1981
Nationality
Indian
Occupation
Co-founder and CEO of Acko, Co-founder of Coverfox & Glitterbug Technologies
Acko’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Varun Dua, has over 10+ years of experience in the insurance market, with a wide spectrum of services and responsibilities. He was in charge of marketing analytics for direct business acquisition and technology for effective customer service. Coverfox Insurance Broking Pvt. Ltd. was his company, and he was its CEO and Co-founder.
He completed his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai. Later, he pursued a master’s at a prominent business school in India called MICA. Known for his extensive experience in product management and business development, Varun Dua’s educational background reflects a solid foundation for his professional journey.
Varun Dua – Family
Varun Dua’s father’s name is Chander Mohan Dua. His mother is Rashmi Dua and he is married to Sapna Rana.
Varun Dua – Career
Varun Dua, the founder of Coverfox, an online insurance aggregation platform, followed the road less traveled in a startup climate where the mantra is “act rapidly and damage things.”
Varun worked as a Trainee at Leo Burnett Advertising for less than a year after graduating. He subsequently went on to work for Tata AIG Life Insurance and Franklin Templeton Investments as a marketing manager. Varun launched two prior companies before founding Coverfox in 2013, Glitterbug Technologies and Enser Communications.
One of the key motivations for founding Acko, according to Dua, was the awareness that there had been an open chance to use the World Wide Web to bring interesting ways of selling insurance products.
Despite the fact that Dua had just come into contact with insurance by chance, he was rapidly pulled into its world and learned everything there was to know about the market’s intricate inner workings. It wasn’t long before he had the desire to start his own business.
In his own words, “I started off not really clear about what I wanted to do, but I definitely didn’t want to do what I was doing.”
The firm takes a D2C strategy, using its web platform to market traditional insurance services. This makes underwriting and risk selection substantially easier. Acko, his company, also offers unique and bite-sized insurance solutions, including rider insurance, ticket cancellation, mobile and appliance protection, and more, in addition to vehicle, bike, and health insurance. Acko also touts partnerships with more than 15 key digital ecosystem firms, including Ola, RedBus, OYO, Zomato, Urban Company, HDB Financial Services, and others.
Varun Dua on the Future of Insurance
Varun Dua – Acko
Varun Dua – Co-founder and CEO of Acko
Acko’s overall motto, according to its website, is “Insurance made easy: Zero commission. Zero paperwork.” Acko ran a campaign with the phrase “Full Paisa Wasool” to make people aware. The term “complete value for money” refers to insurance providing complete value.
Insurance schemes are how Acko makes money. Furthermore, Acko’s digital-only approach removes the retail costs of building physical storefronts as well as a parasitic reliance on a distribution network, both of which are factors that competing insurance firms rely on heavily.
Insurers, according to the owner of Acko Insurance, Dua, are obligated to hire salespeople to reach out to clients and market their goods because they all essentially provide the same or comparable products.
“Our focus on creating customised solutions will create the demand we are looking for, thus eliminating the need to hard-sell and invest a lot on a distributing network,” he adds.
Mumbai-based Acko, founded by Varun Dua, features a variety of customer-friendly programs. The organization has received several five-star ratings and over 4.5 crore satisfied customers as a result of its customer-centric initiatives.
Acko reported an operating revenue of INR 1,334 crore in FY22, which grew to INR 1,758 crore in FY23 and further increased to INR 2,106 crore in FY24. However, the company faced losses during these years. It recorded a loss of INR 482 crore in FY22, which widened to INR 738.5 crore in FY23 before improving slightly to INR 670 crore in FY24.
They deliver outstanding customer service, and as a result, Acko has gained their clients’ confidence. Narayan Murthy and Accel are also behind Acko’s amazing growth. Acko underwrote a premium of INR 41.56 crore in September 2019. In comparison to 2018, the firm had a 6x increase. The premium was previously valued at INR 6.53 crore.
Customers were unable to visit the showrooms because of the pandemic. Automobile purchases made through digital means, on the other side, have increased considerably. When compared with the year 2021, Acko, a digital insurance provider, saw a stunning 120 percent increase in sales of automotive insurance contracts in the first quarter of FY22.
Whether it’s for our vehicle, bike, or ourselves, pre-purchased insurance nearly always comes in useful, if not proving to be a lifesaver. Unfortunately, not all insurance service providers are glad to embrace a 0% fee and serve their customers online, but Acko is, which is why Acko is swiftly gaining steam.
Acko is here to provide premium insurance to the Indians. And moreover, the Mumbai-based Acko is now a unicorn. In the IPL 2022, Acko General Insurance signed on as an associate sponsor for three teams: Gujarat Titans, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Lucknow Supergiants. Two of these teams are new to IPL, having made their debut in the 15th edition.
Varun Dua has made 5 investments with the latest investment made in infinyte.club on August 12, 2024.
Date
Company
Round
Round Amount
Lead Investor
Aug 12, 2024
infinyte.club
Seed Round
INR 302 million
–
Jun 25, 2024
Plus Gold
Seed Round
$1.2 million
–
Sep 2, 2021
dezerv.
Seed Round
$7 million
–
May 23, 2017
Acko
Seed Round
$30 million
No
Feb 21, 2016
Charcoal Eats
Seed Round
$150K
No
Varun Dua – Challenges Faced
A basic challenge with his journey in the insurance sector, according to Dua, has been a lack of trust, which has created a big obstacle in his way in the beginning. Because of the complexities of the products on the market, the buying procedure, and the claiming process, the trust gap is exacerbated.
Customers have always found the insurance claims procedure to be a lengthy, time-consuming, and frequently iterative process. He wants to improve the consumer experience all the way through the value chain.
Varun Dua – Shark Tank India
Varun Dua – Shark Tank India
In more ways than one, the first season of the show, Shark Tank India has been a blessing to ambitious entrepreneurs in India. For watchers, it has been a huge hit! For openers, the show has brought those entrepreneurs a lot of attention, if not money.
The exposure, along with lucrative investments from the sharks, has paid off for some chosen ones. The Sharks’ banter, which is the most amusing segment for the desi population, helps to make the program what it is. It undoubtedly adds to the enthusiasm and provides some excellent items on Indian television. In the popular show’s third season, Varun Dua was one of the sharks at that time.
This is what he wrote on his X account:
To be a “shark” today for me is a strange feeling. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon. And with my average grades, I wasn’t what you’d call type A either. There was nothing in my resume, my repertoire or my background which should lead to the path of starting out a business, that should become large. And yet, here I am. My journey building @ACKOIndia has been anything but straightforward which is why being on Shar40k Tank is so meaningful. There is immense opportunity for young entrepreneurs in right now, as we are on the verge of a techtonic shift in India and India’s ambitions. I’m looking forward to contributing in this new ocean of opportunities with some awesome entrepreneurs.
Varun Dua is the founder and CEO of Acko Insurance.
What are Varun Dua education qualifications?
Varun Dua completed his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai. Later, he pursued a master’s at Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), Ahmedabad.
Does Amazon own Acko?
Amazon is not Acko’s owner. While Amazon has been a major investor in Acko since 2018, contributing to its funding rounds, Acko remains an independent company with its own board of directors and management team.
What is Varun Dua net worth?
Varun Dua’s estimated net worth as of 2024 is INR 107 crore.
Who is Varun Dua wife?
Sapna Rana is the wife of Varun Dua.
What is Varun Dua age?
Varun Dua was born in 1981. He is 43 years old.
What is Acko net worth?
Acko’s valuation after its last funding round was $1.4 billion.
Ashneer Grover was the Managing Director and Co-founder of BharatPe, until February 28, 2022, when he had to resign and renounce his positions in the company. He co-founded the company along with Shashvat Nakrani in 2018. Within four years, they have turned BharatPe into one of the largest used payment apps in India. BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover was also seen on the judging panel of the Shark Tank India reality show. His net worth is around INR 700 crore.
Though Ashneer Grover had a good start in terms of education, career, and business, he also faced multiple challenges in his entrepreneurial journey. This article discusses the complete story of Ashneer Grover right from his early life, achievements, history, and career to the controversies and challenges faced by him recently.
Ashneer Grover was born in Delhi on June 14, 1982. His father was a Chartered Accountant and his mother was a teacher. As his parents were in good professions, the family was doing well. He got graduated from well-reputed institutes like IIT, and IIM.
Ashneer Grover was married to Madhuri Jain Grover. She’s an entrepreneur and owns a furnishing business named Mauve and Brown in Delhi. Ashneer Grover’s wife, Madhuri Grover had taken care of HR, finance, and other internal operations and headed the Controls at BharatPe before she was declared to be one of the employees who were involved in financial fraud and was eventually terminated by the Board. The couple has two children.
Ashneer Grover – Education
Ashneer Grover completed his schooling in Delhi. He then graduated B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). During his time at IIT Delhi, he was selected for a student exchange program with the National Institute of Applied Sciences, also known as INSA Lyon, in France. It is one of the largest and finest engineering schools in Europe.
He moved to INSA Lyon in 2002 with a scholarship of €6,000 from the French Embassy. After graduating from IIT, Grover went to the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad for his MBA in Finance. He graduated from the IIM in 2006.
Ashneer Grover – Initial Career
Kotak Finance Banking selected Ashneer Grover as the Vice President through campus placements from IIM. He has been a part of Kotak for almost 7 years since 2006.
In mid-2013, Ashneer joined American Express (AmEx), a payment card services company, and worked for two years. During his tenure, Grover also famously led some startup investments for the card network of India. The Series B investment in Mobikwik came on behalf of American Express when Grover was still there. He was designated as the Director of Corporate Development in AmEx.
After leaving American Express in 2015, Ashneer became the Chief Financial Officer at Grofers, a startup founded by his IIT Delhi classmate Albinder Dhindsa. However, Grover left the company in 2017 because he didn’t get the ESOP options there that were promised to him earlier. The company is now called Blinkit.
Later in 2017, PC Jeweller Ltd. took Ashneer as the Head of New Business, where he worked for exactly a year. Ashneer Grover established his own company BharatPe at a very young age.
After accumulating 12 years of experience from multiple jobs, Ashneer Grover decided to start his own business. His experience as the head of business development and payments at PC Jeweller sparked the idea of starting a payments company. Ashneer eventually joined hands with Shashvat Nakrani to establish BharatPe in 2018.
Together they built the fintech company from scratch and added several services to its core operation. Today, BharatPe offers UPI Payments, QR codes for transactions, POS machines for card payments, an investment and loan app called 12% Club, and digital gold transactions.
When BharatPe was a $30 million company, Ashneer claimed that he received an offer of $50 million from Google Pay, but he refused to materialize a deal with the latter, as per one of his statements on the show Shark Tank India. Grover later added that he knew that he was meant for something big, which all entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs to be, should aim for, and BharatPe was last valued at around $3 billion.
They also got approval from the RBI for small business financing in collaboration with Centrum Financial Services Ltd. By offering diverse services, Ashneer Grover made BharatPe one of the most used payment apps in the country. However, he had to retire after numerous rounds of controversies thrown at him and allegations surrounding him due to the financial irregularities associated with him, which were noticed by the company’s board. Ashneer Grover tendered his resignation from BharatPe on February 28, 2022, and boasted of still being recognized as the single largest individual shareholder of the BharatPe company.
In a speech that Ashneer Grover gave at the Lovely Professional University on April 29, 2022, where he was invited as a guest speaker, Ashneer shared an insight into how businesses operate and all the things that need to be kept in mind while diving into a new venture. Speaking about the same, he disclosed one such incident, after starting BharatPe, when he sought to make it popular overnight. He had a total of Rs 100 crore in his bank account, but he wanted to sign up Salman Khan. The Bollywood actor charged close to Rs 7.5 crore. However, unsure of whether he could do that, Ashneer asked Salman to reconsider his fees. Salman’s manager also asked him “Aap bhindi kharidne aaye ho kya, kitni mandwali karoge?”. However, at last, Salman reconsidered the charge, and came down to Rs 4.5 crore, thereby becoming the brand ambassador of BharatPe in 2019.
Ashneer Grover – Shark Tank India
Ashneer Grover was a judge on the first season of Shark Tank India and became very popular. However, he was removed after a fallout with his former company, BharatPe, which he had helped start. Despite this, his popularity remained strong, with many fans still hoping he would return to the show in later seasons.
Ashneer Grover – Starting up again with the Unicorn Dreams
Ashneer Grover, as per the reports dated June 16, 2022, was looking to find another startup, for which he will likely be raising around $200-300 mn. The former Co-founder and MD of BharatPe is currently in the US and in talks with the US-based family offices and other private equity offshore players to raise the funding required. Sources said that Grover might also start the business with some of his own money and will eventually sell a part of his BharatPe stakes or raise funding by issuing a stake in the new company. People also added that Grover’s 8.5% stake is now valued at around $3 bn, and there are also buyers for the stake.
The company or the sector that Ashneer Grover will be inclined to start with his new venture was not confirmed, when last reported in June 2022. However, the former BharatPe founder stated on his 40th birthday that he will be re-entering the world of business and also has plans to build another “unicorn”.
Fast forward to July 9, 2022, the startup has already been formed by Ashneer and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, and is called Third Unicorn Pvt Ltd., according to the Tofler data. The startup, which has reportedly launched on July 6, 2022, will have both Ashneer Grover and his wife as Directors. The total paid-up capital and the authorized share capital have been revealed as Rs 10 lakh and Rs 20 lakh respectively.
Ashneer Grover – Controversies and Challenges Faced
BharatPe, as a company, got into a controversy when it labeled itself as nationalistic and its competitors as Non-Indian companies. The company issued pamphlets citing such details to the public. So the competitors filed a lawsuit against BharatPe and reported the same to the RBI.
Another controversy arose when PhonePe and BharatPe fought for the word ‘Pe’ in their respective names. PhonePe has filed a case against the latter in the Delhi High Court. It was later disposed of by the same.
A major controversy faced by Ashneer Grover was about an audio clip leaked on Twitter. It is claimed that Grover used inappropriate language and threatened a Kotak employee over an issue of not securing Nykaa’s IPO shares. Before this issue could be settled, the company’s board raised accusations against Ashneer and his wife. The board accused them of initiating fraudulent transactions against non-existing vendors. They also reported irregularities in invoices. The audio issue forced him to stay away from the company and take a temporary leave for three months. After the discovery of the financial irregularities, the board demanded the permanent exit of Ashneer Grover from the company. Grover then responded that he was happy to leave his role in BharathPe but would always stay as a shareholder and a founder. With pressure mounting up on Ashneer Grover to leave BharatPe, he had strongly criticized the CEO Suhail Sameer. He said that Sameer manipulated and arm-twisted him to exit the company. Grover had also demanded a huge compensation worth around Rs. 4000 crores for his withdrawal from BharatPe. He said that he has 9.5% stakes, which would be worth around the same amount, but it’s been reported that the board is unlikely to agree with it.
Ashneer Grover had made an emergency arbitration plea to the SIAC but that was tossed off by the Singapore International Arbitration Centre. He made everyone believe that the probe by the board was unethical, but he failed. Grover also demanded his buyback before exiting the company, but the BharatPe investors declined the same. According to the BharatPe Board, Grover received the agenda of the company’s board meeting on February 28, 2022, which will also include the PWC report on the conduct of Grover where the actions were taken against him, will also be discussed, and it was on the same day that Ashneer Grover resigned. Grover resigned with immediate effect on 28th February but claimed that he would still be standing as the single largest shareholder of the company after mentioning that he and his family were “vilified” and forced to resign. On 30th September 2024, BharatPe and Ashneer Grover settled ending their long legal battle and public disputes. As per the settlement, Grover will no longer be associated with the company, and the legal case against him has been dropped. As part of the deal, Grover will also give up his shareholding in the company.
Ashneer Grover and Salman Khan
Ashneer Grover recently appeared on Bigg Boss 18 on 18 November 2024, where host Bollywood actor Salman Khan called him out for his past comments and accused him of “doglapan.” Salman also mentioned not remembering any previous meetings with Ashneer. In response, Ashneer praised Salman as a “great host” and said he was sure the episode got great TRP.
Conclusion
The story of Ashneer Grover enunciates that however successful you are, problems and challenges are part and parcel of life. The way you overcome them has the power to define who you are.
Despite the accusations made against him by the board, one can never disagree with the effort and time Ashneer Grover invested in the growth of BharatPe. The Ashneer Grover controversy undoubtedly kept the startup ecosystem, BharatPe Board, the media, entrepreneurs, business professionals, and others engaged for over 2 months, but what hooks all of us right in is what Grover next plans to do. A man of his caliber would certainly have some plans in mind for the startup ecosystem too along with his own personal gains.
FAQs
Who is Ashneer Grover?
Ashneer Grover is the former co-founder, MD, and CEO of BharatPe.
Who is the CEO of BharatPe?
Suhail Sameer has been the CEO of the company since August 2020.
Is Asheer Grover from IIT?
Ashneer Grover is from IIT Delhi.
How Ashneer Grover became rich?
Ashneer Grover became rich by co-founding BharatPe, a fintech company that helps small businesses accept digital payments. The company grew quickly and became valuable, making Grover a wealthy entrepreneur. He also earned money through investments and his role on Shark Tank India.
Which state is Ashneer Grover from?
If you are wondering Ashneer Grover is from which state, then you should know that the Former Founder and MD of BharatPe was born in Delhi.
What is Ashneer Grover education?
He graduated B.Tech from IIT Delhi and MBA in Finance from IIM Ahmedabad.
What is Ashneer Grover age?
Ashneer Grover was born on 14 June 1982. He is 42 years old.
What is the issue with BharatPe’s board and Ashneer Grover?
The board accused Grover and his wife of making fraudulent transactions and irregular maintenance of invoices.
Which was Ashneer Grover first startup?
Ashneer Grover’s first startup was BharatPe, a fintech company that he co-founded in 2018.
What is Ashneer Grover net worth?
BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover’s net worth is around INR 900 crore as of 2024.
What are Ashneer Grover companies funded by him?
Some of the major investments that Ashneer Grover made were in:
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In our haphazard daily life, we tend to get busy with several things and forget about payments and maintaining a log of all the financial transactions. This, sometimes, becomes extremely hectic and might even affect businesses adversely in a whole host of ways. However, with the emergence of numerous business management software, businesses and individuals can manage their businesses effortlessly. Khatabook is one of such reliable software solutions that makes managing business and personal ledgers a breeze!
Founded in 2018 in Bangalore, Khatabook is hailed as India’s fastest-growing SaaS company. Khatabook reminds you through WhatsApp or SMS when the money is due to be paid or collected. forgetting the due dates of payments to be made. Besides, handling multiple businesses will no more be a deal with Khatabook!
The micro, small and medium businesses of the country simply has a new name, Khatabook, which brings safe and secure business and financial solutions to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Here’s diving into Khatabook’s journey in this StartupTalky article, where we will find out more about Khatabook Founders and Team, Funding and Investors, Startup Story, Tagline and Logo, Growth, Business and Revenue Model, Challenges, Competitors, Future Plans and more.
The latest campaign of Khatabook #DhandeKaDoctor featuring MS Dhoni, urging small businesses to use Khatabook to maintain their account.
Khatabook – Latest News
9th November 2021 – Khatabook has decided to shut down MyStore, the eCommerce enablement of the company, which has been a core product of the company, effective from 15th November onwards.
24th August 2021 – Khatabook concluded its Series C round of funding with a fundraise of $100 million led by Tribe Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Alkeon Capital, B Capital Group, Sequoia Capital, and more.
3rd February 2021 – Khatabook released its 2020 statistics. In 2020, Khatabook activated merchants in >95% Indian districts, recording over $100Bn+ in transactions with over 150Mn+ customers.
13th January 2021 – Out of the 7 Indian startups in Y Combinator‘s latest top companies’ list, Khatabook is one among them. India has emerged as an important market for Y Combinator.
Khatabook – About and How it Works?
Founded in January 2019, Khatabook is the fastest growing Saas company in India and one of the fastest-growing SaaS company in the world. It has become India’s leading business management app for MSMEs with 20M+ downloads in a remarkably short period of time. It operates the Android-based Khatabook app that enables companies to keep a digital log of their financial transactions and accept payments online.
Khatabook enables micro, small and medium merchants to track business transactions safely and securely. The app is available in over 12 vernacular languages, catering to a diverse audience in the country.
It helps businesses and individuals manage the business and personal ledgers on their phones and computer devices along with helping them recall the due dates with the help of effective SMS and WhatsApp reminders about the same. This Bangalore-based mobile app service shares WhatsApp and SMS reminders to users when the money is due to be paid or collected.
The Khatabook app has a free ‘Payment Reminders’ feature. With this feature, an automatic SMS is sent to your customers every time a transaction is recorded. Khatabook lets its users keep all details of credits and debits for any number of customers across multiple businesses ready and handy on their phones. Furthermore, Khatabook also helps its customers sync their transactions automatically, download, share and maintain reports of all the transactions, reap all the benefits of the effective QR code-based payments with 0% fees on transactions and more. In short, this app lets merchants do stress-free business.
Khatabook – Industry Details
Khatabook’s founder Ravish Naresh revealed on Twitter that Khatabook activated merchants in >95% Indian districts with 150Mn+ Customers. Based on the Indian MSME Data, Khatabook conducted research and analysis on the credit behavior of people across the country and also the impact of Covid-19 on small businesses.
Over 2020 @Khatabook activated merchants in >95% Indian districts, recording over $100Bn+ in transactions with over 150Mn+ customers. A good chunk of India's retail GDP is already being recorded on the platform and trade flows from across the country are getting digitized. pic.twitter.com/aVcZTlVBGM
Business volumes on credit are 45% higher for South Indian states vs the national average.
Credit given out by Khatabook merchants dropped by 40% in the initial Covid months. It has continued to recover to 80% of pre-pandemic levels by December.
Average days to recover debts increased by 25% during COVID for Khatabook Merchants.
Sectors like travel, construction, apparel were more impacted during 2020.
Khatabook – Founders and Team
Vaibhav Kalpe originally built Khatabook, which was later acquired by Kyte Technologies in 2018. Kalpe later joined the owning team of Kyte before he left the organization. The founding team of Khatabook currently has Ravish Naresh leading the company as the Co-founder and CEO along with other co-founders – Ashish Sonone, Dhanesh Kumar, and Jaideep Poonia.
Khatabook – Founders & Team
Ashish Sonone
The Co-founder of Khatabook, Ashish Sonone is a IIT Bombay Btech graduate in Computer Science. JetSynthesys Pvt. Ltd and Qiosk – News for Professionals were the companies where Sonone worked as a Software Engineer and Consultant respectively before co-founding Frodo and Kyte, in both of which he also served as a Backend Engineer. Khatabook is the third company that Sonone has co-founded.
Dhanesh Kumar
Another Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay, Dhanesh Kumar started with Amazon as a Software Developer, who then realized his entrepreneurial and decided to co-found Knit Messaging, Kyte and now Khatabook, where he is still serving as a Co-founder.
Jaideep Poonia
Jaideep is an IIT Bombay alumnus from where he completed his Btech in Civil Engineering before completing S18 from Y-Combinator. Poonia has also been the co-founder of Knit Messaging, Kyte, and Khatabook as Dhanesh Kumar.
Ravish Naresh
Co-founder and CEO of Khatabook, Ravish Naresh completed his Btech from IIT Bombay, much like the other co-founders of the company, after which he co-founded Housing.com, where he also served as a COO. It was after leaving Housing.com, Ravish co-founded Khatabook, where he is still working as a CEO.
Khatabook currently works with around 300 employees.
Khatabook – Startup Story
The story goes back to 2016, when Ravish Naresh along with his team of college friends, started a digital spend manager app, Kyte.ai. The app helped users understand their expense patterns using their SMS alerts. Kyte initially had good traction but did not reach the expected growth scale. Also, the team realized all their users were based out of metropolitan cities.
On researching, they found that first-time online users did not deal with digital transactions, and they still rely on traditional khata or ledger books. As per Ravish, they wanted to build something that people want and then try to build a business around it.
That is when the idea for Khatabook developed, and they started to work on a simple cash management app, which they named Khatabook. The parent company of Khatabook is Kyte Technologies.
Khatabook – Mission and Vision
The mission statement of Khatabook says, “Empowering Udhari Khata (Book-Keeping)”.
“Started with a vision of transforming India’s small shops, today we are the biggest player in the small business segment digitizing a sector that forms the backbone of our economy. We are looking to work closely with the government and financial institutions to strengthen our market leadership and help MSMEs increase their income while making them more efficient and competitive,” said Ravish Naresh, CEO of Khatabook.
Khatabook – Tagline and Logo
The tagline of Khatabook is Business Hua Easy! The app lets every business go digital instead of following the same traditional method of book-keeping and making it easy to grow their business.
Khatabook’s logo itself signifies what the company is all about. It maintains a digital record of all the transactions we make, something which our actual ‘Khatabook’ (the diary in which we maintain our financial record) does.
Khatabook Logo
Khatabook – Business Model
Khatabook is a mobile app that helps small merchants to digitize their accounting and credit balance recording. It helps to reduce the burden of bookkeeping and accounting. It is just like having a khata in your pocket. The business model of Khatabook is making “Bharat” / India come online.
It is 100% free to use and secure for all types of businesses with which shop owners can record credit (Jama) and debit (Udhaar) of customers. But Khatabook has no revenue source at present.
Ravish Naresh, CEO of Khatabook, said they’re now developing the app to provide a complete financial solution for small businesses. The startup has plans to bring a host of new features onto the platform and UPI payment is next on the line.
Khatabook has seen some growth in the past two and a half years, where it has emerged as an integral part of the MSME community in almost every district in India. A majority of the merchant users on the Khatabook platform have embraced the digital practices dumping their offline business practices.
Furthermore, Khatabook has also introduced 3 other solutions apart from the Flagship Khatabook for the benefit of the MSMEs:
Biz Analyst – This is a leading SaaS business management solution from Khatabook designed to offer premium value-added on-demand services like sales and purchase reports, livestock updates, and other MIS reports. Biz Analyst can be integrated with Tally ERP9 and allows an overall view of the business operations.
Pagarkhata – This is a staff management platform for businesses by Khatabook which aims to help merchants to turn the staff attendance, payroll/wages, attendance updates, leaves, payments, and other processes digital.
Cashbook – Cashbook is another platform by Khatabook built as a cash handling and tracking solution. Furthermore, it also helps with cash sales and expense management.
In 2020, Khatabook has active merchants in 95% of Indian districts, recording over $100 Billion in transactions with over 150 million customers.
Khatabook has recorded total revenue of Rs 17 crore during FY21, thereby registering a 25.3% decline from Rs 24.4 crore. The startup’s revenue from operations, currently recorded at Rs 16.9 crore, witnessed a dip of around 30.7% from Rs 24.4 crore that it posted in FY20. On the other hand, the other income of the startup rose from Rs 12.7 crore in FY20 to Rs 21 crore in FY21.
Diving into the profit-loss segment, it has been discovered that Khatabook has managed to reduce its loss by 63%, which has been brought down from Rs 89.5 crore to Rs 33 crore. This is primarily due to the selling of its intellectual property, some of which it sold to its holding company, Kyte Technologies Inc. for around Rs 57 crore.
In FY22, the company experienced significant growth in its operating revenue, surging from Rs 17 crore in 2021 to an impressive Rs 71 crore. However, this growth was accompanied by a corresponding increase in total expenses, which escalated from Rs 109 crore in FY21 to Rs 189 crore in FY22. Consequently, the company’s losses also saw a substantial rise, soaring from Rs 33 crore in FY21 to Rs 111 crore in FY22 during this period.
Here’s a look at the financials of Khatabook:
Khatabook Financials
Operating revenue for the Khatabook increased by 14% in FY23 to Rs 81 crore. Conversely, there was a marginal rise in losses of 4% to Rs 125 crore. Due to increased employee benefit costs (wages, salaries, PPF, etc.), which amounted to over Rs 142 crore, the company’s total expenses stayed steady at Rs 223 crore, a slight increase from Rs 189 crore in the year FY22.
Khatabook – Growth
Khatabook has registered around 10 Million monthly active users and the numbers are growing.
Growth had an excellent trajectory, which did take a hit during the lockdown in line with other external factors. With the relaxation of the lockdown, the company started reviving the business at a steady pace. The revival has been faster with users in tier-2 and tier-3 cities of India.
As a very relevant offering for merchants in the pandemic, the company also launched the MyStore app to enable them to take their stores online in 15 seconds and continue doing business through their preferred communication channels.
Within a month after the launch, more than 2.5 million merchants across India have installed MyStore. Khatabook also initiated work from home active, 24/7 call center support for merchants. Currently, the revenue model of Khatabook depends on its funding.
Some key growth highlights would include:
5 crore+ registered businesses
A spread over 4000+ cities of India
Powered by popular investors like Sequoia Capital, DST Global Partners, Y Combinator, Tencent, B Capital Group and more
Khatabook – Acquisitions
Khatabook has acquired Biz Analyst on March 25, 2021, which remains the company’s maiden acquisition.
Khatabook – Awards and Achievements
Some of the popular awards and achievements that Khatabook has seen so far are:
It was declared as the Winner of Nasscom League of 10 in the Emerge50 Awards 2020
The company’s app won the Best Innovative Mobile App award at IAMAI 2020
mCube announced Khatabook the winner of the Best Content in a Mobile Marketing Campaign in its awards ceremony in 2020
Khatabook – Partnerships
Khatabook currently partners with the former skipper of the India cricket team, M.S. Dhoni, who is an investor as well as the brand ambassador of the company. The strategic partnership was announced on March 17, 2020.
Khatabook – Challenges Faced
Khatabook also faced a shortage of money during its initial days just like other new startups. Ravish, the CEO of Khatabook realized that they need to look into serious funding options.
In the series A phase, they were struggling a bit with the funding. The growth hit them fast, so the seed round took place in 5 bridges. It was the highest in the history of funding for Sequoia.
“Well, the struggles were mainly money-related. We knew we were working on something important and kept going with it. Often it was difficult to imagine the future of our initiatives with no funding, but perseverance is what got us where we are today,” said Ravish Naresh.
He also said that the adoption of their product was not only dependent on the app’s visibility and convenience but also on educating users, not just for the app but also for using digital technology in general. The biggest hurdle was to persuade offline shopkeepers to come online and train them for digital transactions.
Switching away from the convention is understandably tricky and daunting for merchants who mainly have offline workflows. Persuading traditional enterprises to embrace the digital still remains a crucial challenge for them.
“It is important to build something that people want and then try to build a business around it, and that is exactly what the team did.” said Ravish.
Khatabook announced the shutdown of MyStore on November 10, 2021. The eCommerce enablement product was one of the core products of the company, which also contributed to the expansion of the company by raising funds along with helping the company with its bookkeeping requirements.
“Thank you for being a part of the MyStore journey. We are planning on discontinuing the MyStore App. Your MyStore App won’t work from 15 November 2021,” goes a blog post from the company.
The company has further asked its users to download their invoices by sharing order invoices before doing away with the app.
Khatabook had previously been dragged into a legal fight with its rival, Dukaan over the plagiarism of the name when MyStore was named ‘Dukaan by Khatabook’, in August 2020. Khatabook later decided to change it to ‘MyStore by Khatabook after a legal battle of around four months. The tagline of the app, however, remains the same, ”Create Your Online Dukaan in 15 Seconds” to date on Play Store.
Khatabook – Funding and Investors
Khatabook has raised a total of $186.5M in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on 24th August 2021, from a Series C round. Khatabook is funded by 34 investors in total. Tribe Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures are the most recent investors. The valuation of Khatabook was estimated to be around $600 Million in August 2021.
In a strategic move aimed at optimizing costs and prolonging the company’s financial runway, the organization recently made the difficult decision to implement workforce reductions, resulting in the departure of over 40 employees from various departments. These actions were undertaken as part of a broader effort to navigate the challenges faced by growth-stage companies.
While undoubtedly a tough choice, the company’s leadership recognized the importance of preserving its financial stability and ensuring a sustainable future. This move reflects a commitment to adaptability and resilience in an ever-evolving business landscape, with the hope that these measures will ultimately position the company for long-term success.
“Khatabook has laid off 42 employees across sales, marketing and analytics, and technology verticals,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “People who lost their jobs in the exercise have been given standard severance packages including 3 months salary among others.”
Khatabook – Future Plans
Khatabook plans to expand and achieve two to three times business growth by simplifying the traditional way of doing business. Remaining committed to India’s MSME segment, Khatabook will be adding services to streamline and simplify business processes for the merchants.
“Committing to a goal is essential for business directions and decisions. One thing that pandemic has taught us is that we need to think through the most unlikely scenario and make sure we are relevant in all possible scenarios or are agile enough to change our direction as per the need of the hour,” says Ravish.
Khatabook has already managed to build a widely accepted tech ecosystem for the MSMEs across the country and will now concentrate on the disbursement of financial services through its tech platforms. These financial services will further enable smooth lending, payment, and deposits in the MSME space.
Khatabook is eyeing the right partnership opportunities to seamlessly roll out the solutions that would benefit the economic aspirations of countless small businesses.
Khatabook has announced a buyback scheme of ESOPs worth USD 10 Million in order to acknowledge the contributions of its employees, the ex-employees and the early investors who stayed by the company and helped it grow. The employees who are eligible for the ESOP scheme would be able to sell up to 30% of their vested options. Meanwhile, Khatabook has also expanded its ESOP pool to $50 Mn.
Furthermore, Khatabook is also looking to strengthen its talent base by hiring employees for the engineering, product, design, analytics, and data science departments.
Khatabook – FAQs
What is Khatabook?
Khatabook is the world’s fastest-growing SaaS company. It is India’s leading business management app for MSMEs that enables companies to keep a digital log of their financial transactions and accept payments online. It’s like having a khata in your pocket.
Is Khatabook an Indian app?
Yes, Khatabook is an Indian app founded in 2019 with an aim to reduce the burden of bookkeeping and accounting.
Which company owns Khatabook?
Kyte Technologies is the Parent Company of Khatabook.
Who is the CEO of Khatabook?
Ravish Naresh is the CEO and Co-founder of Khatabook.
Who are the founders of Khatabook?
Khatabook was founded by Ashish Sonone, Dhanesh Kumar, Vaibhav Kalpe (Ex-Khatabook), Jaideep Poonia and Ravish Naresh in 2019.
How does Khatabook make money?
The Khatabook revenue model is non-existent at the moment. Naresh says their focus is now on developing the app to provide a complete financial solution to small businesses.
What is the use of Khatabook?
Khatabook app enables MSMEs to keep a digital log of their financial transactions and accept payments online.
What is the valuation of Khatabook?
The valuation of Khatabook was estimated to be around $600 Million.
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Indians are slowly and steadily considering Cryptocurrency as a safe mode of investment. Mostly the younger generation is taking interest in Cryptos. According to some reports, the average age of crypto investors in India is around 24 years. However, there are still many speculations about crypto trading and many investors are not comfortable with Crypto trading still. This is why the Bangalore-based startup, CoinSwitch Kuber was formed in 2017 to make crypto trading simpler for Indian Investors.
The startup enables trading in several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, and many others, using INR. You just need to download the CoinSwitch Kuber iOS or android app and start trading. In this StartupTalky article, we are exploring more about CoinSwitch Kuber, the story behind the startup, and what the startup is offering, which includes CoinSwitch Kuber website, CoinSwitch Kuber reviews, CoinSwitch Kuber deposit, CoinSwitch Kuber investors, CoinSwitch Kuber login, CoinSwitch Kuber fees, and how it is growing!
CoinSwitch Kuber is a cryptocurrency trading platform that aims to simplify investing in cryptocurrencies. CoinSwitch Kuber aggregates liquidity across major Indian and global crypto exchanges. The platform’s order matching engine provides the traders the best rates at the click of a button, thus making trading simpler than ever.
“We discovered that the price of crypto swings between exchanges based on supply and demand when trading in crypto ourselves. Choosing the correct exchange is crucial if you want to obtain greater profits from the market. “We created an aggregator of various exchanges that offered us real-time data on which exchange is the best to trade at any particular instant to obtain the highest return,” co-founder Ashish says explaining the idea behind the startup
CoinSwitch Kuber lets users trade across 100+ cryptocurrencies. Users can buy cryptocurrency using a credit or debit card at competitive prices on the CoinSwitch platform. After completing the KYC/AML processes, customers may use the pooled liquidity of India’s top exchanges to receive the best rate and trade instantly.
The CoinSwitch Kuber mobile app comes with a simple user interface that makes crypto trading a breeze.
While customers from over 200 locations in India invest in crypto through its platform, tier I cities account for 40% of its users, while tier II (36%) and tier III (24%) make up the majority of its clientele. On CoinSwitch, the average ticket size per user is 9,000 per month, however, this varies by city. The average ticket size in Tier I is Rs 11,600, compared to Rs 6,600 in tier II and Rs 3,500 in tier III.
What’s interesting or concerning, depending on one’s perspective, is that the average age of a crypto investor on CoinSwitch is 24 years, and Singhal claims that crypto is the first investment in any asset class for 65% of his customers outside of savings bank accounts and fixed deposits!
CoinSwitch Kuber’s tagline says, “Buy, Sell, Trade.” CoinSwitch Kuber has launched a new campaign with the catchphrase “Trade Kar, Befikar.”
CoinSwitch Kuber – Founders and Team
CoinSwitch Kuber was founded by Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Govind Soni, and Ashish Singhal in 2017.
Founders of CoinSwitch Kuber
Ashish Singhal
Ashish Singhal is the Co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch Kuber. Former Amazon employee who interned at Microsoft, Ashish Singhal, is a computer science graduate from Delhi’s Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. Besides handling various technical roles in companies like Livspace.com and Reap Benefit, Ashish founded startups like CRUXPay (an open-source protocol for blockchain naming services) and Urban Tailor, which is the first of its kind at home tailoring services. He left the position at Urban Tailor in September 2016, but continued with CRUXPay, before stepping down from that too in April 2020.
Govind Soni
CoinSwitch Kuber Co-founder and CTO,Govind Soni was also a former Amazon and Livspace employee. Besides CoinSwitch Kuber, Govind co-founded CRUXPay along with Ashish and Vimal. Soni was also a student of the same college as Ashish, where he studied Computer Engineering, and served as the Co-founder and CTO also at CRUXPay, before stepping down from it in January 2021.
Vimal Sagar Tiwari
CoinSwitch’s Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO), Vimal Sagar, worked with organizations like Zynga and Accenture. He graduated from the Jaypee University of Information Technology. Vimal is also a Co-founder of CRUXPay, and is still retaining the positions of Co-founder and COO at CRUXPay.
The CFO, CBO, and SVP quit their roles to start up a new initiative that will offer insights to web3 investors. Sarmad Nazki, Sharan Nair, and Krishna Hegde of CoinSwitch Kuber haven’t finalised the name of the startup yet, as per news dated July 8, 2022. Nazki has served in the position for a little more than a year. Nair joined CoinSwitch Kuber just after the company was launched in 2017, and held numerous positions during his long stint, whereas Hegde joined the unicorn crypto company in September 2021. CoinSwitch Kuber confirmed that the positions of CFO, CBO, and SVP will be taken up by Ramesh Bafna, Rishav Dev, and R Ventakesh. The trio has already been talking to Web3 focused-investors to raise a seed round ahead.
The CoinSwitch Kuber team has an employee count that somewhere ranges between 501-1000, as per its Linkedin profile.
The origin of CoinSwitch Kuber can be traced to the realisation of Govind, Vimal and Ashish, all of whom were computer engineers and friends, when they discovered that the price of cryptocurrency is dynamic. It varied slightly across all the prominent crypto exchanges, based on the demand and supply. Therefore, they thought that if the users wanted to get better returns from the market, especially when it comes to scale, they needed to choose a good cryptocurrency exchange. This is what made them decide to create an aggregator of crypto exchanges. Here, their main aim was to provide real-time data on the best prices and exchanges for cryptocurrencies to be traded.
Ashish, Govind, and Vimal, who are all in their early thirties, have been friends since their college days when Ashish and Govind were batchmates, and Vimal was a mutual friend of theirs. They were also tech whizzes who competed in hackathons as a group. Almost every big hackathon in India was won by the trio, including the ones organised by Sequoia, Google, Amazon, and LinkedIn. Surprisingly, CoinSwitch was inspired by a hack that the trio subsequently made public.
On one occasion, the founders-to-be of CoinSwitch created a simple crypto exchange aggregator in a hackathon, but little did they know that the hack would later turn into a full-fledged company.
CoinSwitch Kuber was founded in 2017, and as soon as it launched, the startup started to take users on board at a rapid scale. The users “needed simplicity in the crypto world”, said Ashish, and this made the simple and intuitive nature of the product work. The only goal that the founders of CoinSwitch had while working on the product was to make crypto easy to understand and accessible to the masses.
However, soon after CoinSwitch was launched as a product, RBI’s announcement came, where the body signaled a ban on the cryptos by asking the banks to refrain from supporting these currencies in 2018. This made the founders take their product, which was then simply known as “CoinSwitch”, to the global market.
Eventually, Sequoia Capital backed their venture, thereby making the CoinSwitch foray into success. Though the platform turned successful indeed outside of India, the hearts of the CoinSwitch founders were set only on their country.
This turned real when Supreme Court intervened, overruling the previous RBI ban, thereby making it an open season for the crypto-based businesses like WazirX, ZebPay, CoinSwitch and more. This was more than a silver lining for them. They soon launched CoinSwitch Kuber app just for the Indian market.
CoinSwitch Kuber – Mission and Vision
The CoinSwitch Kuber team believes in financial inclusion, which means that wealth, investment, and financial education should be accessible to all people.
CoinSwitch Kuber’s mission statement says, “Our Mission is to challenge the status quo. We believe that our platform democratizes cryptocurrency investment so the everyday man can make his money work for him – without a fancy degree or a boatload of money.”
The company’s vision is to make crypto trading simple and transparent.
CoinSwitch Kuber – Partnerships
NDTV and CoinSwitch Kuber have established a strategic collaboration to provide comprehensive and best-in-class cryptocurrency programming in August 2021. NDTV will create unique crypto destinations on gadgets360.com, ndtvprofit.com, and ndtvindia.in as part of this relationship. This bridge expansion includes a refreshing show on NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India every other weekend.
The need for trustworthy and accurate information is more important than ever as cryptocurrencies become more mainstream and more individuals begin to evaluate this asset class. With NDTV’s credibility and confidence, as well as CoinSwitch Kuber’s subject expertise and powerful trading platform, this collaboration aims to bridge that gap.
CoinSwitch Kuber Partners with Startup Karnataka for Blockchain Hackathon
The Blockchain Hackathon, Building Future Cities, an initiative decided by Startup Karnataka of Karnataka government, and Tejasvi Surya, Bengaluru South MP, will also have CoinSwitch as its partner. This initiative is aimed to recognize blockchain-based solutions and bring them to the citizens from across the country, in order to dissolve the everyday problems they face. Sequoia India will also be backing this hackathon.
CoinSwitch Kuber – Business Model and Revenue Model
CoinSwitch Kuber is one of just a few cryptocurrency companies currently functioning. Users may acquire shards of various major cryptocurrencies on the crypto market. On CoinSwitch, for example, a user may buy bitcoin and other currencies in tiny sachets for as little as 100 Indian rupees ($1.30), which proves really profitable for the users. Besides, where other crypto exchanges came up with products for the traders who are acquainted with the order books, and are well-versed with buying/selling orders, CoinSwitch distinguished itself by targeting the users who hadn’t see an order book before, and wasn’t aware of what it was.
CoinSwitch Kuber presents itself as an aggregator and don’t charge the users, in contradiction to other crypto exchanges, which usually charge transaction fees from the users. CoinSwitch Kuber, instead, of a maker, negotiates with the crypto exchanges on transaction fees.
Speaking on the business and revenue model of CoinSwitch Kuber, Founder and CEO, Ashish Singhal said, “We give a fixed price to users and aggregate supply on the backend, Our execution engine is where the revenue comes from. But going forward, earning models may evolve as innovations and regulations come into play.”
CoinSwitch Kuber offers its users free trading, deposit, and withdrawal facilities for the first 100 days. After that, a fee is charged on each transaction made through the platform. As per the terms of the company, there is no fee for the transfer of digital assets to the CoinSwitch Kuber wallet, however, withdrawal of digital assets from the wallet may attract charges. The platform also charges for the transfer of fiat currency through credit/debit cards or net banking.
CoinSwitch Kuber – Growth and Revenue
CoinSwitch Kuber has managed to impress investors with its concept and performance. In addition to Tiger Global Management’s $25 million investment in April 2021, Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Paradigm, Kunal Shah, the creator of Cred, and others have backed CoinSwitch. With the recent fundingreceived from Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures in October 2021, CoinSwitch Kuber reached Unicorn status with a valuation of $1.9 billion.
CoinSwitch Kuber boasts of witnessing the highest number of downloads among the crypto startups in India in 2021 when it was downloaded more than 6.1 mn times.
CoinSwitch Kuber is the most downloaded crypto exchange app in 2021downloaded
Ever since CoinSwitch was started and was taken global after the RBI ban, the company started seeing huge transactions through their app. Within just 2 years, CoinSwitch Kuber has seen more users onboard its app than any other crypto exchange in India. This growth has been mainly due to the simplified UX that the app brought in, and its decision to not provide the users with certain trading features.
Singhal points out that unlike other startups they did not knock on the investors’ doors.
“We did not reach out to Tiger Global for funding. They contacted us and expressed their willingness to invest in our company. Tiger doesn’t invest less than $100 million but we said we just need $25 million,” says Singhal.
Kuber claims to have over 15 million users in India, and the monthly active user count of CoinSwitch Kuber is over 7 million. It has also been disclosed that more than half of them are under the age of 25. CoinSwitch Kuber claims to have handled $5 billion in transactions in the last 11 months.
The firm intends to expand its operations outside cryptocurrency in the future.
“We intend to expand into traditional finance, such as equities, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and bonds, and provide a full portfolio on our platform to retail customers,” says the company.
“We are not a capex-intensive business, and don’t need too much money. Hence, our EBITDA margins are in the range of 60-65%,” reveals Singhal.
CoinSwitch Rolls Out the Web3 Discovery Fund
CoinSwitch has launched the Web3 Discovery Fund, which is a fund that will invest in and help incubate early-stage startups that are engaged in building blockchain solutions for the Web3 space. This Web3 startups funding initiative of CoinSwitch is currently aiming to help up to 100 Indian startups, as per the reports dated August 10, 2022. Ashish Singhal, the CoinSwitch Co-founder and CEO stated that the fund has already received an initial corpus of $10 mn and the company is further looking to raise some more funds from marquee investor partners ahead.
CoinSwitch: some of the major growth highlights are:
It has over 2 crore+ users as of February 2024
It is backed by some of the world’s leading investors including a16z, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India.
On November 22, 2023, CoinSwitch launched the multiexchange trading platform CoinSwitch Pro on November 22, 2023. This platform marks a significant advancement for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and traders. This cutting-edge platform not only provides users with a comprehensive view of multiple tokens across various exchanges but also empowers them to make informed decisions by comparing prices and selecting the most suitable options.
What sets this platform apart is its seamless functionality, allowing users to effortlessly trade crypto assets in INR across a multitude of exchanges, all through a single login. This streamlining of the trading process not only enhances the user experience but also signifies a pivotal step towards greater accessibility and user-friendliness within the cryptocurrency realm.
There is a variable transaction charge associated with using the cross-exchange platform, depending on the crypto exchange that is used. The CoinSwitch Pro platform stands out for its flexibility in serving various users and exchangers.
CoinSwitch Kuber – Funding and Investors
CoinSwitch Kuber has raised over $300 mn over 4 funding rounds. It is now counted among the unicorn startups of India, with a valuation of over $1.9 bn.
Date
Round
Amount
Lead Investors
October 6, 2021
Series C
$260M
Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures
Apr 22, 2021
Series B
$22.7M
Tiger Global Management
Jan 13, 2021
Series A
$15M
Paradigm, Ribbit Capital
Mar 24, 2018
Seed Round
$1.5M
–
Andreessen Horowitz is a CoinSwitch Kuber investor, who invested for the first time ever in India in the $260 mn funding round of CoinSwitch, and was joined by Coinbase Inc., which turned CoinSwitch into a unicorn. Some other investors of CoinSwitch are Tiger Global, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital etc.
CoinSwitch Kuber – ESOPs
CoinSwitch Kuber recorded their first-ever ESOP buyback programme on March 21, 2022, worth $2.5 million. This buyback round was a mixture of funding that came from both the internal and external sources.
CoinSwitch Kuber – LayOffs
CoinSwitch in a recent move, has undertaken a strategic restructuring initiative, resulting in the reduction of its workforce by 8%. This decision translated to approximately 44 employees being laid off from various departments. Presently, CoinSwitch boasts a total workforce of 519 employees, as per their LinkedIn profile.
The impact of these layoffs has predominantly been felt within the customer support team, where the majority of the affected employees were stationed. While such decisions are often undertaken as part of broader efforts to optimize and realign company resources, they undoubtedly bring about significant transitions for both the organization and the employees involved.
In the official statement company spokesperson said, “we right-sized our customer support team to align with the present volume of customer queries on our platform. This impacted the roles of 44 members of our customer support team, who voluntarily resigned from their roles after a detailed discussion with their managers earlier this month.”
CoinSwitch Kuber – Competitors
To mention, the top 10 competitors of CoinSwitch Kuber are:
CoinSwitch Kuber employs over 120 people and has over 4.5 million users on its network. In comparison to other applications on the market, the app provides consumers with a clean UI and UX design. However, it was recently discovered that the app does not support UPI payments.
On April 21, 2021, the organization announced on all of its official social media accounts that INR deposits in the CoinSwitch Kuber App will be disabled. CoinSwitch Kuber said on Twitter that the firm has temporarily blocked all INR deposits owing to unforeseen problems with their banking partner. The issue was later resolved and now INR deposits are enabled.
Cryptocurrency is a murky area in India. Despite the legalization of crypto investments in India, there are many fears and doubts related to the topic. When it comes to difficulties, Ashish believes the company’s sole issue is teaching people in India about cryptocurrencies and the ecosystem.
CoinSwitch Kuber had got into trouble in association with the idea of lending feature with the SEC, and as a result, Ashish had to drop the idea. However, the founders still are of the opinion that they would be able to use the lending and stakes feature to utilise them for earning revenues in the future. They have already started working to make it possible by working with regulators and gaining their confidence.
As the trading of cryptocurrency lacks defined regulations, CoinSwitch Kuber temporarily paused crypto withdrawals.
CoinSwitch Received ED Notice in Association with FEMA investigation
CoinSwitch reportedly received a notice from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) along with some other cryptocurrency firms like CoinDCX in association with the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) investigation. Here, ED is determining whether or not these companies were engaged in offences related to foreign currencies. On this, CoinSwitch mentioned that it has received notifications from ED and is ready to comply with them, as per reports dated July 12, 2022.
CoinSwitch Kuber – Future Plans
CoinSwitch has revealed plans to build a cryptocurrency investment platform by June 2024 that is targeted at retail investors as per news report of March 11, 2024. Through the provision of user-centric technology, this program seeks to democratize access to digital asset trading and enable users to navigate investments with confidence.
FAQs
What does CoinSwitch Kuber do?
CoinSwitch Kuber is a crypto trading platform for individual investors that is available only in the Indian market via a mobile application. It enables trading in several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, and many others, using INR and is available as a mobile application (INR).
Unocoin, WazirX, CoinDCX, Instamojo, Glidera, ZebPay, SmartCoin, IPaxful, Bitxoxo Bitcoins, and Coinbase are the top ten competitors of CoinSwitch Kuber.
When was CoinSwitch Kuber founded?
CoinSwitch Kuber was founded in 2017.
Who founded CoinSwitch Kuber?
CoinSwitch Kuber was founded by Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Govind Soni, and Ashish Singhal in 2017.
What is the CoinSwitch Kuber website?
The CoinSwitch Kuber website is coinswitch.co
What are the CoinSwitch Kuber fees?
CoinSwitch Kuber doesn’t ask the users anything such as the CoinSwitch Kuber fees. It rather poses itself as an aggregator and negotiates with the crypto exchanges on transaction fees.
How is CoinSwitch Kuber login done?
The CoinSwitch Kuber login procedure is really easy where the users need to download the app of the company and then they need to first have an account to log in to the same, with the same login credentials.
What are CoinSwitch investors?
Some of the prominent CoinSwitch investors are Ribbit Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Coinbase Inc., Sequoia, Paradigm and others.
What was the CoinSwitch deposit issue?
CoinSwitch deposit of rupees was temporarily disabled, but it was fixed after 2 long weeks.
What is wrong with CoinSwitch Kuber withdrawals?
When it comes to CoinSwitch Kuber withdrawals, the company has announced that it has temporarily disabled the withdrawal of cryptocurrencies.
We are living in an era where fintech is taking over the world. Technology has always given us a revolutionary form in every sector, now it is the turn for fintech. India has become a hub for startups. More and more people are showing their interest in being an entrepreneur. Fintech startups are showing immense growth in the country and as of now, India has over 2,100 Fintech companies. As per reports, by 2025 the fintech market in India is expected to reach $150-160 billion.
Now, any kind of business needs funds to function, without funds, the survival of a business is not possible. The fintech industry is booming with new business ideas and opportunities alike. Now Fintech startups are experiencing growth and one of the prime reasons is the investors. They are providing these startups with the required funds that their business needs. In this article, we will talk about the different investors in India that invest in fintech startups. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.
“FinTech is not only an enabler but the driving engine” -Pierre Gramegna
How Fintech Founders are Planning to Dominate the Indian Bond Market?
Elevation Capital which is formerly known as SAIF Partners is a venture capital firm known for investing in some of the most popular startups and is one of the biggest investors in India. The company was founded in the year 2002 by Ravi Adusumalli and since then it has never looked back and provided support to some of the biggest fintech startups in India. Some of the popular Indian fintech startups that have received funding from this venture capital firm are PayTm, FamPay, Uni, Jodo Anthem, Aye Finance, Acko, and more.
This Mumbai-based investment firm, founded in 2010 has been showing its grasp by investing in some of the seed-stage and early-seed-stage startups from all sectors of business. The venture capital firm has participated in more than 175 funding deals. Some of the Indian fintech companies it has invested in areInstamojo, Turtlemint, Slice, Zopper, Kaleidofin, Unicoin, smallcase, and more. Blume Ventures is one of the most popular venture capital firms in India that has generously invested in some of the most popular fintechs in India.
Better Capital is founded by Vaibhav Domkundwar and the firm is focused on building and investing in promising businesses. This India-based, venture capital firm has been showing its interest in fintech startups from the very beginning. Better Capital’s investment portfolio includes more than 200 companies among which 40 are related to fintech. The venture capital firm has invested in some of the popular fintech startups like Rupeek, Open, Slice, M2P, Jupiter, Rupify and others.
Kalaari Capital is a popular Indian Venture Capital firm that is founded by a woman, Vani Kola. The headquarters of the Kalaari Capital is situated in Bengaluru. The investment firm founded in 2006 mainly looks for promising and early seed-stage startups from multiple sectors to invest in. Kalaari Capital has invested in the likes of Threedots, Upstox, Toffee Insurance, AffordPlan, WeRize and other fintech startups.
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The venture capital firm mainly focuses on early-stage businesses and invests in them. The company focuses on multiple sectors including Fintech, Edtech, b2b sectors dealing with fintech, Health-tech, SaaS, consumer brands and others. The headquarters of the company is situated in Mumbai. The company has invested in more than 70 deals and among them, 9 are related to fintech startups. Some of the popular fintech startups that the venture has invested in areLendingkart, LoanTap, Upwards, Propelld, and more.
Prime Venture Partners
Founder – Amit Somani, Sanjay Swamy and Shripati Acharya
Prime Venture Partners – Fintech Investors in India
Prime Venture Partners was founded in the year 2011 and since then it has funded many fintech startups. The company was founded by Amit Somani, Sanjay Swamy and Shripati Acharya and the headquarters is situated in Bengaluru. The company has also invested in the sectors of Edtech, SaaS, and health care. Some of the major fintech startups that Prime Venture Partners have invested inareNiyo, AffordPlan, KredX, Knight FinTech, and more.
Pravega Ventures
Founder – Mukul Singhal, Rohit Jain and Vinay Menon
Another prominent fintech investor in India on the list is Pravega Ventures, founded by Mukul Singhal, Rohit Jain and Vinay Menon. The headquarters of the company is situated in Delhi. Pravega Ventures has contributed to more than 26 funding deals till now. The venture capital firm focuses on tech-related startups which include fintech as well. It has invested in fintech startups like ePayLater, Flexmoney, Mintoak, MyShubhLife, and more.
Titan Capital
Founder – Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal Founded – 2015 Investment Portfolio – LogiPe, Jupiter, Credgencies, Razorpay, Tinkerr, Astu Credit
Titan Capital – Fintech Investors in India
Titan Capital is a venture capital firm whose headquarters is situated in Gurugram. The most interesting thing is that the firm is founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal who are the founders of Snapdeal. The firm focuses on funding seed-stage and pre-seed-stage startups. It was founded in the year 2015 and since then Titan Capital has participated in many funding deals related to different sectors of startups. Titan Capital has invested in fintech startups like LogiPe, Jupiter, Credgencies, Razorpay, Tinkerr, Astu Credit, and more.
For any kind of business, investment is necessary. Investors willingly provide businesses that they deem to be potential with the needed funds. Fintech startups are growing in numbers in India, and it seems like it’s just the start of the real game. Naturally, investors are also looking to invest in fintech startups as financial services have become an important need and the market is growing quite fast. With time, many other venture capital firms will also start investing generously in fintech startups.
FAQs
What is Fintech?
Financial technology is abbreviated to FinTech and it comprises companies that use technology to offer financial services.
How many fintech startups are there in India?
There are more than 2100 fintech startups in India as of 2022.
Cred is a popular fintech company founded by Kunal Shah in 2018. It is a reward-based credit card payments startup. Recently, Cred raised $80 million in its latest funding round at a $6.4 billion valuation. Even after making a loss of Rs 524 crore in FY21 why is this company getting so many investors? Is Cred more than just a credit card payment app?
To find answers to these questions let’s see what acquisitions Cred has made in recent times. This will give us a clear idea of the future plans of Cred.
In October 2021, Cred acquired HipBar, an alcohol delivery and payment startup. Cred was interested in this deal because HipBar has a prepaid payment instrument license (PPI).
Now, what is PPI? It is a prepaid payment instrument that allows the payment of goods and services, including fund transfers against the value stored on the prepaid card. RBI has issued this license to only 37 firms in the country.
Using the PPI licence, Cred can issue cash vouchers and prepaid cards and can facilitate digital wallets for the Cred community.
Cred’s holding firm Dreamplug Technologies has held the share capital of Prasanna Natarajan, founder and CEO of HipBar and Rajalakshmi Natarajan, co-founder and director of HipBar.
Kunal Shah and his brother Rohan Shah have joined the board of HipBar as directors. Rajalakshmi has resigned from the company. Although Prasanna is still a director.
With this acquisition, Cred will now directly give cashback to the user’s wallet instead of their bank accounts. Users can then use the wallet to pay credit card bills and purchase products from its merchant partners.
This is a smart strategy by the company to make the customers stay connected with their ecosystem.
“It appears to be a smart move as the wallet would enable CRED to drive repeat transactions through its own payment instrument,” said one of the entrepreneurs who doesn’t want his name mentioned in the article.
Parfait Finance and Investment
In November 2021 Kunal Shah acquired a non-banking finance company, Parfait Finance and Investment. RBI has approved this acquisition and it will help the company to extend its lending services to its users.
This acquisition is part of Kunal Shah’s plans to provide a range of financial services to its exclusive Cred community. The company is already providing loans through a partnership with IDFC First Bank.
The company has also launched Cred Mint by partnering with LiquiLoans, an RBI-registered P2P non-banking lender. Cred Mint allows users to lend money to other Cred users.
The company has also applied for a payments aggregator license. Using this license Cred can process the payment of merchants with consumers online. The merchants can accept payments in the form of debit cards, credit cards, e-wallets, or bank transfers.
The payments aggregator license will help Cred to enable e-commerce on its platform.
Happay
Happay Logo
In December 2021, Cred acquired Happay, a corporate expense management platform, in a cash-and-stock deal at a valuation of $180 million.
Happay is a business expense, payments and travel management platform that manages work-related expenses for over 1 million users globally.
This deal allows Happay to work as a separate company but its employees will work closely with Cred to help the company scale its business and add new financial services for the Cred users.
The 230 member team of Happay will get all the benefits that the employees of Cred get, including its ESOP program.
“The move will bring in synergies between Cred, the majority of whose members are professionals who use it to manage personal payments across multiple credit cards, and Happay, the only unified platform for business expenses, payments, and travel bookings,” a statement by Cred said.
Happay’s in-house payments system will help the Cred users to manage their expenses on their credit cards.
“With professional expenses forming a significant portion of credit card spends, bringing professional expense management into the Cred ecosystem is a natural extension of our proposition,” Kunal Shah said.
Conclusion
As you can see Kunal Shah is making Cred future ready. The company is unveiling multiple revenue verticals in the form of house rental payments, lending and wallet payment business along with e-commerce.
These acquisitions show us that Cred in the future might become a banking institution for its exclusive users. It will make the platform an irreversible ecosystem for its exclusive Cred community.
FAQs
How many startups Cred has acquired?
In total, Cred has acquired 3 startups. HipBar, which is an alcohol delivery and payment startup, Parfait Finance and Investment, which is a non-banking finance company and Happay, is a corporate expense management platform which will allow users to manage their expenses on their credit cards using the Cred app.
Is Cred approved by RBI?
The services that Cred offers to its users do not require the approval of RBI. The credit score of the users is verified by a credit rating agency which is also authorized by the RBI.
Is Cred a unicorn startup?
Cred entered the unicorn club in 2021 after raising $215 million in funding, at a post-money valuation of $2.2 billion.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by muvin.
Neobanking services are revolutionising both the financial and Fintech sectors in India. Fintech ecosystem is gearing towards better usage of Artificial Intelligence and improving customer satisfaction with popular neobanks in India like- RazorPayX, Jupiter, and Kotak811, to name a few. muvin is an emerging startup that enables a seamless experience for teens which includes pocket money management, financial literacy, and understanding savings from a young age, amongst others. It is a pocket-money app that encourages children to learn to manage finances.
Read the startup story of muvin and know about its founders, business model, challenges, and growth.
While parents/guardians can create an account to enable their dependents/children with an independent wallet, muvin also empowers India’s college going students to set up their own wallets to conduct transactions.
As part of their focus on amplifying financial literacy amongst India’s teens, the muvin app offers an exhaustive library of enriching content to demystify concepts related to managing finance. They have onboarded Monika Halan, an entrusted Author and Speaker to curate and address theme-based topics in an easy, fun, and simplified manner. From taxes to what banking truly is, muvin is covering the fundamentals and more via rich byte-sized video and short blogs that are relevant for teens.
muvin – Industry
With new players entering this space, teen-centric pocket money apps and neobanks have become a competitive digital banking landscape in a short period of time. The space has grown exponentially in the last five years. In terms of transaction value, the Indian Neobanking ecosystem is expected to clock US$47.94bn in 2022 setting the foundation for substantial growth potential in the coming years.
muvin – Founders and Team
Mukund and Vineet have known each other for over 20 years from their time at Mindtree in the early 2000’s. They share a passion for enabling access to banking services for the youth and believe that finance is a life skill that everyone should acquire by the age of 21.
Mukund Rao, Co-founder
Mukund Rao, Co-Founder, muvin
Mukund is an accomplished business leader with experience across financial services and technology. Former Capital Markets Head at Mindtree, Mukund founded derivIT in 2007 and grew it across 7 countries with a team of 400+ employees. He subsequently exited derivIT to Luxoft in 2017.
After graduating from Bangalore University, he pursued his MBA from Ecole des Ponts Business School.
Vineet Gupta, Co-founder
Vineet Gupta, Co-founder, muvin
Vineet has over 25 years of experience spread across technology and financial businesses, driving innovation and digital business models. Vineet moved on from Mindtree in 2015 after building out their Digital Business and subsequently founded a tech enabled NBFC focussed on business credit.
He graduated from IIT-Delhi and went on to pursue his MBA from IIM-Lucknow.
While both co-founders are actively engaged in all aspects of the business, Vineet looks after the Product, Operations, Finance & Technology functions at muvin, while Mukund looks after Marketing, Strategy and Business Development functions.
muvin – Startup Story
Despite India’s adoption of digital banking and contactless payments, the digital native generation still conducts over 80% of their transactions in cash. Both the co-founders, Mukund and Vineet, have teenage children who were using cash or their cards while spending money. They found the process of opening bank accounts for their kids and teaching them how to operate it within the restrictions on bank ATM/debit cards, rather cumbersome. The most common resort for parents like them was to hand over pocket money to their children. No wonder, teens often end up entering adulthood with little or no knowledge of financial management.
They saw an opportunity in enabling digital payments and offering financial products for this young consumer base- in an easy-to-understand, intuitive and friction-free manner. This is how muvin came into being.
They validated the hypothesis by empanelling Ipsos to conduct independent primary research of children and parents across 8 cities.
muvin – Name, Tagline, and Logo
muvin logo
muvin is a play on the word “moving”, where they would like their target audience to get moving and keep moving. The co-founders of muvin believe that Gen-Z is always on the go and they would like teens to get moving with their financial lives as soon as possible. The tagline, “payments for students”, addresses their audience and the core functionality of muvin, thereby avoiding any ambiguity.
muvin – Vision
muvin’s vision is to empower India’s 250 million youth with digital financial inclusion and financial literacy. muvin is unwaveringly moving forward in positioning the management of personal finance as an essential life skill and the need to inculcate it from an early age. muvin believes that India’s teens must be empowered to experience independence in their financial transactions and decisions in their day-to-day life.
muvin – Products
Bolstered by the pandemic, there has been widespread adoption of digital banking and contactless payments across the country which led to a permanent shift towards wallets, contactless cards, digital payment apps and other financial products. However, over 250 million teenagers and young adults in India are still precluded from not just financial education but banking services as well, conducting the majority of their transactions in cash. Gen Z are becoming financially aware and independent a lot earlier than a few decades ago. Pocket money apps for the teens are ideal in addressing their financial needs.
muvin has partnered with the parent community towards its larger vision of amplifying financial literacy amongst India’s digitally savvy teens. It has also understood some other critical issues that matter to parents, such as tracking of their household expenditure.
Parents now have the freedom to transfer pocket money allowance (one time /scheduled weekly / monthly) directly in their child’s wallet who can then spend the money through the app or through their own prepaid card. Parents no longer have to stress over tedious banking roadblocks. Monitoring their child’s spending habits was never this easy.
These are early days for teen-centric apps and they are in the first lap of a marathon. It is a new category and competition helps in both, creating and growing awareness about the product’s relevance and need amongst the key target user base. All the market players are addressing varied gap areas through their products, services and customer experience.
muvin is the first pocket money app to offer a RuPay co-branded keychain targeted at India’s teens. The keychain presents the most convenient and secured contactless payment mode with a simple ‘tap and pay on-the-go’ feature. The contactless keychain can be used across all RuPay NFC enabled merchants for fast processing and seamless transaction experience each time.
muvin also offers chat based banking on their website and whatsapp without the need of downloading the app. This allows customers to check their balance, view recent transactions, block their card etc.
muvin – Business and Revenue Model
There are no charges levied on customers for using the muvin services. muvin makes money from the interchange fees incurred by the merchant for card based transactions. Within the first six months of its product launch, muvin witnessed over 150,000 installs. Currently, the figures stand at approximately 50k app downloads every month.
muvin – Customer Acquisition
muvin’s journey started with the launch of its app and the ‘muvin card’ for teens in October 2021. In the same month, muvin onboarded Ace cricketer Hardik Pandya as their brand ambassador to propel its multi-channel marketing campaigns- a move which helped the brand to garner immediate attention and much-needed impetus from its target customers.
Teens need validation and approval from their parents/guardians and since its inception, muvin is consistently engaging with the parent community. Parents need to be assured on the trust front. muvin’s partnership with industry prominent players like RuPay has also helped it to strike a trust-worthy chord with the parents. Imparting financial responsibility as a trait has to be a consistent and an on-going approach. Parents are appreciating the educative, short videos and blog format content for their children which muvin offers on its digital platform. The early adopters of the muvin app have played an important role in expanding its reach amongst newer adopters.
muvin has adopted a multi-pronged approach in reaching out to potential customers. Developing a strong presence on social media has been key to building the muvin brand, as this is where Gen-Z spends a high percentage of their time. muvin is building itself out to be a young brand that teenagers can approach as an elder sibling or friend. They have also curated financial content in byte sized formats that is easy to understand and comprehend in under a minute. They have also partnered with multiple brands to serve their customers with offers and cashbacks relevant to their age group.
muvin – Customer Retention Strategy
To drive retention, muvin has partnered with multiple brands to serve their customers with offers and cashbacks relevant to their age group. They also run engaging contests and offers on the app which are refreshed on a weekly basis to keep their customers and audience engaged consistently. Through their insights led customer engagement platform and social media channels, they keep their users updated on the latest happenings on the app.
muvin – Challenges Faced
Neobanks and teen-centric pocket money apps like muvin have carved a niche category to address crucial consumer pain points which had not been addressed before. They have consistently channelised their energies to get their key consumer audience to shift from cash to digital transactions- which still continues to be a challenging affair.
Players like muvin get to interact with their customers digitally only which makes trust building especially amongst digital-savvy parents, a tedious and slower process. This requires utmost transparency and in this regard, muvin’s partnership with RuPay has helped them tremendously.
Earlier in January 2022, muvinraised USD 3 million in a pre-Series A round which was led by WaterBridge Ventures, with participation from India’s largest Venture Debt fund Alteria Capital and Krishna Bhupal, Co-Founder, Rational Pricing Technologies and board member of GVK Power & Infra.
Prior to that in April 2021, muvin raised a seed round of $1.5+ million from HNI’s Krishnakumar Natarajan (Managing Partner, Mela Ventures), Ambar Maheshwari (CEO, IndiaBulls Asset Management), Gani Subramaniam (Partner, WRVI), Shajikumar Devakar (Executive Director, IIFL Asset Management Limited), Sandeep Jethwani, and other prolific angel investors from the financial services industry.
muvin – Growth
muvin’s platform caters to India’s teens spread across leading cities in India. The brand is gearing towards engaging with one million registered users in the next 12 months. Its ambition is to enable 100 million financially literate students in the next 10 years- prepare them to confidently make the right financial choices by the age of 25 years.
With regular communication and feedback from their early adopters, muvin team plans to steadily enhance its product and introduce new features over the next two-three quarters that will substantially upgrade their users’ experience. To achieve additional scale, muvin is open to raising an additional round of funding towards the later half of this year.
FAQs
When was muvin founded?
muvin was founded in 2020.
Who is the founder of muvin?
Mukund Rao and Vineet Gupta are the founders of muvin.
Has muvin raised funding?
Yes, muvin has raised a funding of $4.5 million.
Is muvin app available on Google Play store?
Yes, muvin app is available on the Google play store and Apple app store.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.
Consumer durable financing demand is expanding across India as the country’s urban population grows, brand awareness grows, and disposable income rises. Because it was the only secure and available choice for customers during the lockdown, internet options reported increased usage of financial services.
The Indian banking system is undergoing an unprecedented shift. Digital lending strategies are getting popular, putting banks’ conventional retail lending procedures on alert.
Even though the transition is pandemic-driven, the technology revolution that swept the financial world in the pre-Covid eras was on the verge of launching digital lending platforms. However, the virus made it grow at an incredible rate.
In 2018, Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal formed a financial services firm based in India called Navi. The headquarters of the company are in Bangalore. Digital personal loans, home loans, healthcare insurance, mutual funds, and microloans are all available through Navi.
The business today has millions of users, more than 3 billion apps downloaded, 825 thousand or more investors, 36 lakh or more satisfied customers, and 105 thousand or more health insurance policies sold to date.
Navi is working on a digital lending platform that will make finance-based services more economical, simple, and relevant to everyone. Navi is a digital lending software that offers you loans up to Rs. 20 lakh in an entirely cashless approach. The company’s platform enables customers to access financial services at a low cost through customer-friendly and innovation-driven enterprises in the financial services, banking, and insurance spaces.
IT and consulting services, non-banking financial services such as loans and microfinance, insurance products, and mutual funds are among Navi’s integrated activities. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has also granted the business a stockbroking and investment advisory license, according to the regulatory filing (SEBI).
The duration of the loans offered by Navi ranges from 3 to 36 months. Navi Finserv also offers 2-wheeler, residential, local business, and educational loans in addition to consumer loans.
Navi works in three simple steps:
Select the loan and EMI amount.
Complete KYC using Aadhar and PAN.
Instantly, money is transferred to your bank account.
Navi – Industry
During the projected period, the digital lending market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of around 11.9% (2022–2026). Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, SMEs all around the world struggled to raise funds to keep their operations running during the crisis period.
An important driver that is driving the industry’s expansion is shifting customer expectations and behavior as a result of the numerous advantages provided by the digitalization of banking and financial services. Consumers come from various backgrounds and will need the loan for several reasons, including personal loans, SME financing, and house loans, among many others.
The lending environment has evolved dramatically over the years because of the fast implementation of digitalization in the BFSI business. In several areas around the world, conventional lending is still practiced. The advantages given by digital solution providers, on the other hand, are progressively paving the way for business adoption of digital lending solutions and services.
Furthermore, various technical improvements, such as the widespread usage of smartphones, have resulted in a rise in the acceptance of digital banking across a variety of end-user industries. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud computing are also beneficial to financial institutions and banks because they can analyze large volumes of client data. This data and information are then compared to produce findings on the appropriate assistance that clients desire, thereby assisting in the development of customer relationships.
Navi – Founders and Team
Navi was founded by Ankit Agarwal and Sachin Bansal in 2018.
Sachin Bansal – Co-founder of Navi
Ankit Agarwal
Navi’s Chief Financial Officer is Ankit Agarwal. Ankit Agarwal studied computer science at IIT Delhi and then obtained an MBA from Ahmedabad’s Indian Institute of Management. Agarwal was previously the VP at Deutsche Bank. He also served as VP and Director at Bank of America before founding Navi with Sachin Bansal.
Sachin Bansal
Sachin Bansal joined Techspan after finishing his degree and worked there for a few weeks. As a senior software engineer, he joined Amazon.com India in 2006. He quit Amazon in 2007 and co-founded Flipkart with Binny Bansal, his business partner. Bansal had served as the chairman of Flipkart for over 10 years before leaving the company in 2018. The ex-founder of Flipkart then founded Navi in the same year.
Navi Technologies chief Sachin Bansal announced that the company has appointed Vidit Aatrey as its independent director. The co-founder and CEO of Meesho, Aatrey’s appointment has been effective since April 9th, which is still subject to the completion of some formalities. Abhijit Bose, Shripad Nadkarni, and Usha Narayanan are the three other directors named by the company; Bose is the Head of India of WhatsApp and the founder of Ezetap; and Nadkarni has worked with reputed organizations previously like Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and more. and Narayanan has previous experiences with Lovelock & Lewes Chartered Accountants LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and more.
Navi – Startup Story
After leaving Flipkart in December 2018, Sachin Bansal and an IIT-Delhi alumnus created BACQ Acquisitions Private Limited, which was eventually rebranded ad Navi Technologies Private Limited.
Soon after leaving Flipkart, the co-founder and chairman changed course to continue his mission to make his long-term dream happen. Sachin Bansal had his heart set on another great thing, even as his Flipkart dream came to an end. Bansal’s insatiable pursuit of something new can be observed in the fact that he has only spent a few months since leaving Flipkart without investing in or acquiring a firm, mostly for his current venture, Navi Technologies.
Despite the lockdown, Navi’s founder and CEO invested INR 3,000 crore in his firm and built a personal lending app. Flipkart, like Navi, which has acquired a series of businesses in the last 2 years, was built on a foundation of mergers.
Navi – Name, Logo, and Tagline
Navi stands for “new” which depicts what the company stands for.
The new India is becoming more and more accepting when it comes to the digitalization of financial services and banking, which is what Navi does.
Navi’s tagline says, “Get Instant Loan using Navi.”
Navi’s mission statement says, “Our mission is to provide financial products and services that are simple, affordable and accessible by building a customer-centric and technology-first organization.”
Navi – Business Model and Revenue Model
When it comes to Navi Technologies Business Model, the company has emphasized technology-enabled financial and banking services, as well as the seamless integration of the neo banking model with traditional banking services and assurance. To gain domain understanding, Sachin Bansal has teamed up with fellow IIT Delhi alumni Ankit Agarwal, who is a banker by profession.
“Building a universal bank is a reflection of our commitment to provide financial services to those who need them most. Our vision is to go beyond what hitherto has been broadly defined as ‘financial inclusion and provide access to formal financial services using technology that people can use intuitively and easily.” – Sachin Bansal.
It’s worth mentioning that Navi only operated for 3 to 4 months in FY19. Navi’s NBFC business provided over 72% of this income in the form of interest income and related fees. The remaining 8% and 20% of revenue came from the insurance industry and advisory services, respectively.
Navi – Funding, and Investors
Navi Technologies has raised funding in over 6 rounds the latest round of funding was raised on May 12, 2022.
Date
Round
Amount
Lead Investors
May 12, 2022
Debt Financing Round
$ 72.62 million
–
Apr 13, 2020
Private Equity Round
$26.51 million
Gaja Capital
Apr 2, 2020
Funding Round
$398.99 million
Sachin Bansal
Jan 10, 2020
Venture Round
$30 million
International Finance Corporation
Nov 14, 2019
Funding Round
$117.97 million
Sachin Bansal
Jan 31, 2019
Angel Round
$7 million
Sachin Bansal
Navi Technologies, a four-year-old financial business helmed by Sachin Bansal, is the latest Indian fintech startup to submit a DRHP with market regulator SEBI. The loan-providing fintech business plans to raise INR 3,350 crore in the public market.
According to the DRHP obtained, the IPO offer would be made only through a new share issued. This means that no firm shareholders will sell their shares during the Initial Public Offering.
While reading the DRHP, the fact that Navi Technologies’ promoter, Sachin Bansal, has a massive 97.39% interest in the business was found. Because the IPO offer does not contain an OFS component, he will keep 97.39% of the stock after the Public Offering. This implies he owns more of his firm than the well-known Nayar family, which runs Nykaa.
Navi – Investments
Navi Technologies has invested in 6 companies.
Date
Organization Name
Round
Amount
Feb 10, 2022
Infra.Market
Debt Financing
$30 million
Jul 24, 2019
Kissht
Debt Financing
$6.06 million
Jul 17, 2019
boAt
Debt Financing
$2.42 million
Jul 3, 2019
Bounce
Debt Financing
$1.2 million
Apr 24, 2019
KrazyBee
Series B
$12.10 million
Mar 29, 2019
Bounce
Debt Financing
$4 million
Navi – Acquisitions
Navi Technologies has acquired 2 businesses to date.
Acquiree Name
About Acquiree
Date
Amount
DHFL General Insurance
DHFL General Insurance. is a Third Party Car Insurance company.
Jan 2, 2020
–
MavenHive
MavenHive is a Bangalore based tech consulting firm.
Dec 26, 2019
–
Navi – Growth and Revenue
Sachin Bansal, who has also been the founder of Flipkart, after getting an offer of $16 billion from Walmart, decided to sell his 5.5% stake in the company for Rs 7650 crore. However, this time with Navi, which he founded with a vision to build a financial services behemoth over the next two decades, he remained steadfast, which is the primary reason behind the growth of Navi Technologies. The company is already in the segments of asset management, insurance, and lending and is further looking to expand its horizons. The founder currently owns 97.39% of the company’s stakes, as per the reports dated April 3, 2022.
The Navi company has launched a metaverse-based fund of funds scheme, Navi Metaverse ETF Fund of Fund, with the help of its mutual fund arm. Anmol Como Broking sponsors the Fund of Fund scheme of Navi, which will be managed by Navi Mutual Fund. The Fund of Fund scheme-owned assets will be managed by Navi AMC Limited.
According to the company’s current documents filed, Sachin Bansal-led Navi Technologies became profitable in the fiscal year 2021, achieving a combined profit of Rs 71 crore. In the previous fiscal year, the firm had lost Rs 8 crore.
On August 18, 2023, Navi reported revenue of Rs. 438.7 crore for the first quarter of FY24 and the previous quarter (Q4 FY23). However, there was a 2.3X increase when compared to the first quarter of the previous fiscal year (Q1 FY23).
Navi Technologies Revenue Breakdown
Navi Technologies Revenue Verticals
FY21
FY20
Interest Income
INR 451 cr
INR 143.02 cr
Other Operating Revenue
INR 235.6 cr
INR 40.3 cr
Insurance Business Revenue
INR 92.4 cr
INR 15.7 cr
Navi’s sales increased by over 143% as the firm’s operations developed and the usage of banking and financial services via internet channels soared during the pandemic. The income was Rs 137 crore, up from Rs 56 crore the previous year, 2020.
The company’s total earnings increased by 251% from Rs 199 crore in FY20 to Rs 779 crore in FY21, demonstrating the company’s expansion.
The expenditures of Navi have increased by 217% year on year, from Rs 219 crore to Rs 673.8 crore (YoY).
Navi Technologies Expenses Breakdown
Navi Technologies Expenses Verticals
FY21
FY20
Employee Benefit Expenses
INR 169.7 cr
INR 61.6 cr
Advertising and Promotional Expenses
INR 38.7 cr
INR 1 cr
Other Operating and Admin Expenses
INR 190 cr
INR 95.58 cr
Impairment Loss on Financial Assets
INR 187.2 cr
INR 23.8 cr
Finance Cost
INR 88.2 cr
INR 37.02 cr
Navi Technologies Financials
Navi Technologies Financial Breakdown
FY21
FY20
Operating Revenue
INR 779 cr
INR 199 cr
Total Expenses
INR 673.8 cr
INR 219 cr
Profit/Loss
Profit of INR 71.2 cr
Loss of INR 8.07 cr
EBITDA Margin
30.15%
22.02%
The EBITDA of Navi improved positively. On a unit level, Navi Technologies has been reported to have spent Rs 0.86 to earn a single rupee of revenue during FY21.
Navi Financials – FY19-FY21
Bansal had broken down the lending business, stating that the company’s microfinance loan book was worth Rs 1,500 crore and its non-microfinance loan book was worth Rs 600 crore. According to Bansal, the company was disbursing loans of Rs 350 crore each month.
“We are now comparing ourselves with banks and NBFCs. That is why we describe ourselves as a financial services company that happens to be good in technology. I don’t like the word fintech, lot of fintechs don’t have (lend from) their own books,” Bansal had said.
Navi – Products and Services
Navi App
Navi app was released in 2020, and according to latest news the Navi Mutual Fund has effectively empowered 1 million Indians on October, 2023 by making investing money on the Navi app simple and reasonable.
Navi – Layoffs
According to sources, Navi just let go of 200 employees across the divisions of technology, products, and analytics on July 13, 2023. Employees had no prior knowledge of layoffs, according to sources. Meanwhile, a recruiter reported that the upper management had downsizing plans and that HR policies were in place to make sure that not much severance was needed to be paid.
Company spokeperson said, “Navi conducts performance appraisals twice a year, which results in expected departures from the company. However, Navi continues to have multiple open positions and the company is expected to continue hiring many new employees this year, including a batch of 150+ campus hires who will be joining in August.”
Navi Technologies, owned by Sachin Bansal, is allegedly aiming to file a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI for a 4,000 crore initial public offering (IPO) shortly.
According to sources, the firm plans to make its initial public offering (IPO) in June of this year. The IPO will be conducted purely through fresh share issuance, with no component of an OFS (offer for sale). Bansal owns almost 97% of the firm and will not dilute his holdings in the IPO.
The IPO is intended to aid Navi’s expansion in personal loans, microfinancing, and mutual funds, in addition to its mutual fund operations. Navi is also expected to utilize the funds to fund its expansion goals, which include creating a loan book of 20,000 crores in the next two years and obtaining roughly 15,000 crores in debt from the public markets over the same time frame.
Navi became a public company in February 2022, in preparation for an initial public offering. The fintech firm has enlisted the aid of ICICI Securities, BofA Securities, and Axis Capital to manage its public offering.
FAQs
Who founded Navi?
Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal founded Navi.
When was Navi founded?
Navi was founded by Ankit Agarwal and Sachin Bansal in 2018.
Is Navi NBFC registered?
Navi Finserv (Navi) is an RBI-registered non-banking financial company (NBFC).
How does Navi operate?
IT and consulting services, non-banking financial services such as loans and microfinance, insurance products, and mutual funds are among Navi’s integrated activities. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has also granted the business a stockbroking and investment advisory license, according to the regulatory filing (SEBI).
Who are Navi founders?
The Navi startup founders are Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal.
Ashneer Grover has turned out to be quite a famous name in the startup ecosystem and beyond it. Though Grover has been recognized popularly as the Co-founder and MD of Bharatpe, who has left the organization recently, the popularity of Grover is also due to the fact that he is a judging investor on the reality TV show “Shark Tank India”. The show is the Indian adaptation of Shark Tank, which was famous worldwide, originating from the west. The show offers a clear view of the natural attitudes of venture capitalists in the business world. Here, Ashneer is probably the most famous shark in the Indian adaptation of Shark Tank.
Ashneer is a straight face investor who just speaks when he can add value, but when he speaks, he is brutally honest and mostly rash with words. He is the human adaptation of the idiom, “When it rains, it pours”. Shark tank is one of the hottest shows right now.
Ashneer has also made a series of news and headlines for some other things at his organisation. The BharatPe founder has been in the headlines for multiple reasons. The board of directors and other key people are also in the limelight for some questioning. This article talks about the series of events that happened and the consequences which the events took.
A Little Brief about the Ashneer Grover Controversy
The headlines have been covering Ashneer and the company a lot recently. The news is that the Co-founder and MD of BharatPe, who has reportedly resigned from the organization that he founded, Ashneer Grover, had previously written to the board of directors to remove Suhail Sameer from the board. Suhail is a co-founder too and he is also the current Chief Executive Officer of the Fintech startup BharatPe. There has been a lot of ruckus around the company.
When Ashneer Grover went on a voluntary leave in January, Suhail was made in charge of operations at the headquarters located in New Delhi. Suhail was also promoted to the post of Chief Executive Officer in August last year. All of this ruckus started when Ashneer engaged in a controversial audio clip with a Kotak Mahindra bank employee where he abused him in an alleged call over the financing for the Nykaa IPO. His voice circulated all over social media and he was also criticized severely. Ashneer was eventually asked to take a voluntary leave of absence till the end of March along with his wife and some other Bharatpe employees, which eventually turned into a mandatory leave of absence. Besides, the news was also ripe that the board of directors is in an attempt to scrutinize the financial frauds that Ashneer, his wife, and some other employees, who are allegedly involved with the same and this might also see Ashneer and his wife out of the company along with the others.
He responded strongly to the matter. He was also individually and independently examined for his governance in the company.
According to Ashneer, he is being arm-twisted into venturing out from the startup he built along with Suhail. He also mentioned that he was the one who chose Suhail to be the key person in the company and now Suhail is siding with the board to expel him.
Ashneer also replied that if the company wants to expel him, he wants his worth out of the company. At a valuation of 6 billion dollars, the 9.5% of shares that Ashneer has stands at ₹4000 crores. If the company wants to buy him out, it needs to put his ₹4000 crores on the table, he explained.
The financial frauds updates dated February 23, 2022, that entangled Mr. and Mrs. Grover along with some other BharatPe employees states that Madhuri Jain Grover, the wife of Ashneer Grover, was fired by the Board of BharatPe due to alleged irregularities and has also cancelled the ESOPs vested with her. Though an official statement from the company is still pending, Madhuri’s termination has been confirmed by a spokesperson close to the matter. Fast forward to February 28, 2022, Ashneer Grover resigned from BharatPe with immediate effect following the termination of his wife. With his resignation, Grover also steps down from the positions of Co-founder and Managing Director. Ashneer was recently rejected an emergency arbitration plea, which he filed with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), who tossed out all the 5 pleas that Grover made and left him without a single relief.
“I write this with a heavy heart as today I am being forced to bid adieu to a company of which I am a founder. I say with my head held high that today this company stands as a leader in the fintech world,” writes Ashneer Grover.
Grover’s letter said time and again that he and his family had suffered continuous vilification, for which he had to finally resign. Meanwhile, BharatPe has claimed that the resignation letter of Ashneer Grover was dropped minutes after he received the agenda for a board meeting, which would also include a report submitted by PWC regarding the conduct of Grover, and considering actions on it, as per the reports dated March 1, 2022. However, Grover also claimed that though he is resigning he will still stand as “single largest individual shareholder of the company.”
Ashneer Grover Vs The Board of BharatPe
Ashneer was in the news with a lot of headlines. One of the headlines was the board of a company trying to remove him from the startup. In the initial stage, the board realised that the company funds are being mishandled or tampered with. This is why they decided to put Ashneer and Madhuri Grover and some other employees on a mandatory leave of absence. On further investigation and when other controversies surrounded the founders and a list of its other employees, the Board then wished to remove Ashneer and Madhuri from the company along with some other BharatPe executives. To this, Ashneer replied that he has done nothing wrong and the allegations that the board and the media posted were all wrong. “The allegations had no rhyme and no reason”, he reported.
He admitted that the culprit in the issue is not himself and he further admitted that Suhail was the person who had to be expelled from the company. He said that Suhail was choosing the side of the board of directors to remove Grover as a key person in the company. Suhail deserves to be expelled from BharatPe. It was also brought to notice that Ashneer was the person who believed and entrusted Suhail in managing the company.
According to Ashneer, he is being arm-twisted into leaving the company. Even then, he has no problem or issues in leaving the company but he wants the company to first payout his share.
He said that if the company wants me to step out, then he wants his share of 4000 crores on the table. He thinks that his time is too important to be stuck somewhere in internal politics. He wants to focus on building more and he is not in the retirement stage. This finally led to Ashneer Grover resigning BharatPe on February 28, 2022.
One might think that the issue is around Ashneer Grover and the company. In some sense, one might think that the whole topic is Ashneer Grover Vs. the Board of BharatPe. It is not wrong but it is also not completely true. As the fight of words started between the company and Grover, a string of issues were ignited. The fire also ignited other issues surrounding the whole company, BharatPe.
There were financial authorities asking for credibility in sources of revenue and accounting norms from the company. The company was being screened for corporate governance issues if any.
The flight of issues was such that the RBI had to be involved. The Reserve Bank of India is examining the company to check any discrepancies. RBI is checking if any Corporate Governance rules were violated. If they discover anything fishy about some rules being violated, the company can get a big shock. Along with the awaked goodwill, the RBI can stop future mergers of BharatPe with any other entity.
It was alleged that there existed some financial irregularities at the FinTech startup. The issues and allegations got unearthed very recently during the investigations by risk management authorities and other financial regulatory bodies. One of the most notable authorities in investigations is Alvarez and Marsal, a management and risk advisory firm. The firm had already declared that there were inconsistencies in billing in dealings with the vendors. Besides, Alvarez and Marsal also found that there were payments from the company to vendors whose identities are faked.
As per the latest update dated February 23, 2022, from the sources close to the matter, Ashneer Grover’s wife Madhuri Jain Grover, who headed the Controls of Bharatpe, has been fired on the grounds of financial misappropriation. The probe that was ongoing on behalf of the BharatPe Board stated that Madhuri had used the company funds to fund her personal travels, on skincare products, and to buy expensive electronics goods. Furthermore, the report also includes her alleged expenditure of the company money worth Rs 1 crore for her holiday travels.
Ashneer Grover and Kotak Bank Controversy
The ex-co-founder and managing director of BharatPe, Ashneer Grover stepped down from the daily operations in the company in January. This was followed by a voluntary turned mandatory leave of absence from the company until the end of March, which finally concluded in the resignation of Grover and a termination of his wife.
This was the time when he sparked a lot of controversies. One of the controversies was even a legal spat between Grover and Uday Kotak (Kotak founder).
The first time Grover started a controversy was the time when an audio file was leaked. Ashneer Grover was allegedly abusing a Kotak employee in the leaked audio file. That was the first instance when the cofounder at BhartPe sparked controversy and was quickly spotted on the headlines. Nothing has been proved yet but the news is out there reporting some blowing facts and figures. Grover however explained that all of that was fake.
The audio call headlines got more air when a legal notice surfaced on the news. The notice was from Grovers to Kotak and was dated November 30. This event further made the issue visible to the general public.
Both were seeking compensation claiming that Grovers decided to invest Rs 500 crores in Nykaa IPO through the bank’s IPO financing services. Grover claimed that the bank failed him in financing for the Nykaa IPO. Even then, he had no problem or issues in leaving the company but he first wanted the Board or somebody from the company to buy him out his share. The company at the present time stands at a valuation of $6 billion, as per Grover’s estimates. Ashneer says that he is happy to leave once he is paid his share of Rs 4000 crores. The board of directors is yet to reply to this statement. Moreover, Grover has hired three legal firms to be legally protected in these times. The cloud of allegations, which was hovering during the past couple of months was finally dissolved in the form of the resignation of Ashneer Grover, days after the termination of his wife by BharatPe Board.
Grovers and the Allegations Against Them
Investors at the FinTech firm BharatPe are not liking it with Grover and they are even mostly ready to give his payout to leave the company. As the issue moved further, Ashneer came to the sidelines and the company was in the front of headlines.
There was a preliminary investigation that was done by some external experts in the matter and they highlighted not just one but two big issues associated with the finance technological company.
The two allegedly fraudulent persons who are associated with the company are the Grovers – Ashneer Grover and Madhuri Grover (his wife) who made the cloud of allegations more strong. Madhuri, however, is linked in both the fraudulent issues found by investigators.
The report was helmed by Alvarez and Marsal, a management and risk advisory firm. The report was dated 24 January 2022, and was submitted to the BharatPe board. The Mint reported on 30th January, that the board had arrived at a decision to end the services of Grover based on the preliminary report submitted by Alvarez and Marsal, even as it had commissioned a comprehensive report.
Those two allegations that the company has pushed to Grovers were of financial wrongdoings. The two major grounds on which they were troubled were irregularities in retirement and other allegations were about non-existing vendors on the platform.
An examination of just two of the vendors pegged the amount paid by BharatPe for undelivered services at close to ₹4 crores. Grovers still maintains silence over all the allegations that point to them. The Grovers and BharatPe have not responded yet to the mentioned allegations.
Among all the headlines, Ashneer says that he is being arm-twisted into stepping down and he has done nothing wrong to the company and the society. He says that he is still the finest person to run the company. However, it is taken into notice that Ashneer has hired three legal firms to support him in a fight with the board of the company. He has hired Karanjawala, Ritin Rai and Meraki law to make himself legally prepared for any future proceedings.
A&M’s report found out that there were about Rs 51 crores that were paid to 30 vendors who were really non-existent. These payments and transactions were caught by the directorate general of GDT Intelligence or DGGU. The company on top of that also did not contest the demand for service tax, instead, they paid about Rs 11 crores in dues.
The primary investigation also found some irregularities in the workings of the company and the issue of non-existent vendors.
They found that this entailed an overall expense related to the 30 vendors of approximately Rs 53.25 crores (under validation). The company reversed the claimed input credit of 9.54 crore rupees and paid a penalty of 1.54 crores rupees. A&M has also recommended to the board that these issues require a much deeper investigation and analysis as to why the company was dealing with ‘non-existent vendors’ in the first place.
The top allegations that Ashneer Grover faced in the wake of 2022 are:
He was accused of using expletives against a Kotak Mahindra bank representative.
Grover allegedly was involved in turning the working culture of BharatPe toxic.
Both Grover and his wife, Madhuri Jain Grover, who was also the Head of Controls of BharatPe, participated in financial irregularities involving the funds of Bharatpe.
Ashneer Grover Lost an Arbitration He Filed Against the Probe
As soon as the Board of BharatPe started its investigation against Ashneer Grover, the Co-founder and MD of BharatPe, decided to rage against the same along with cementing his profits if an exit happens by wielding his stakes in the company. After Grover went on a two-month leave of absence, as decided by the Board, he quickly planned to file an arbitration plea with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), where he claimed here that the investigation of BharatPe against him was illegal. However, after the procession of the events, all pretty much against him, Grover lost his arbitration plea, as per the reports dated February 27, 2022, where sources close to the matter stated that the emergency arbitrator (EA) commented that in no ground the governance review at the fintech firm can be stopped.
According to the anonymous sources thorough with the matter, the emergency arbitrator (EA) has reportedly rejected all the five grounds via which Grover placed his appeal, thereby denying a single relief.
Grover had first pleaded about the preliminary investigation being invalid before the arbitrator. This is because, according to him, it violated the shareholder agreement and the articles of association, which is why he pleaded that the company can conduct any such investigation in no authority.
He was also of the opinion that all of the appointments for the independent audit of the internal processes and systems of the company were pleaded to be bad in law. Grover had further alleged that the members of the committee who will be reviewing the governance processes, including the CEO of BharatPe, Suhail Sameer, and the general counsel of the company, Sumeet Singh, are all biased Ashneer Grover also pleaded that the appointment of Suhail Sameer as a director should be suspended and that he should be “restrained from discharging any functions as director of the company”, in the plea, thereby seeking that no action should be taken against him. Grover further added in his plea that the company kept on with the review and assessment in spite of several representations/objections and this was not a transparent process that gave him any chance to present his case. However, all of these claims and his entire plea have been rejected recently by the EA because all the five grounds of relief that Grover gave, seemed to be unreliable. The emergency arbitrator reportedly mentioned that Bharatpe has acted according to the law and governance norms against Ashneer. Mr. Grover can now further challenge the order of the arbitrator before the Delhi High Court, as per sources.
The Resignation of Ashneer Grover
Ashneer Grover resigned from BharatPe and has also relinquished the posts of Co-founder and Managing Director of BharatPe on February 28, 2022, after he was recently notified of the rejection of his emergency plea by the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) on all 5 grounds.
Here is a timeline of events to help you have a glimpse of the whole controversy involving Ashneer Grover, BharatPe and Kotak Bank:
Timeline
Events
January 5, 2022
Ashneer Grover’s audio clip with Kotak employee surfaced where he used profanities.
January 6, 2022
Grover declared that the audio clip is fake.
January 8, 2022
The audio clip was taken off from Twitter and SoundCloud and Ashneer Grover eventually deleted his tweet.
January 9, 2022
Reports came to limelight where Ashneer and Madhuri allegedly sent legal notice to Kotak. The bank further decided to press charges on him and Madhuri.
January 17, 2022
The emails exchanged between Ashneer Grover and Harshit Sehji, the MD of Sequoia Capital came into the limelight that dated back to August 2020. This purported that Grover is wanting to partially sell the shares in a secondary transaction
January 19, 2022
Ashneer Grover goes on a voluntary leave of absence
January 29, 2022
BharatPe board decided to onboard independent auditors to run a probe on the company’s practice under Ashneer Grover’s administration
January 30, 2022
Grover hoped to see an amicable resolution but he still hired a law firm to protect him and his stakes in the company.
February 4, 2022
The investigation conducted against the BharatPe co-founder, his wife and some other employees, linked Ashneer and Madhuri Grover with financial frauds. Ashneer Grover’s letter dated February 2, 2022, surfaced, which talked about the removal of Suhail Sameer from the Board.
February 10, 2022
Madhuri Jain Grover questions the leak the initial findings that name her in the Alvarez and Marsal report, with a letter to A&M.
February 11, 2022
CEO Suhail Sameer assures the BharatPe employees to trust the Board for the future proceedings.
February 22, 2022
Ashneer Grover attacks Rajnish Kumar, the Chairman of the BharatPe board, seeking protection against any future actions as part of the settlement process.
February 23, 2022
Ashneer Grover’s wife and the Head of Controls of BharatPe, Madhuri Jain Grover, was fired by the BharatPe Board due to misappropriation of funds, as per the independent audit led by Alvarez and Marsal.
February 27, 2022
Ashneer Grover’s emergency arbitration plea against the governance probe was rejected by SIAC.
February end
According to the reports, the key investors of BharatPe had turned down the Ashneer Grover offer of selling his stakes in the company for over Rs 4,000 crore.
February 28, 2022
Ashneer Grover resigned.
Conclusion
All these leaks here and there point to more and more issues in the bricks of this behemoth organisation. Further investigations are being carried out to get a more clear picture of the whole issue and the resulting consequences. Right now most reports have no rhythm and reason and investigations are continuing.
FAQs
Is Ashneer out of Shark Tank?
Ashneer has confirmed that his deals are not affected by the controversies.
Who is BharatPe CEO?
Suhail Sameer is the current CEO of BharatPe.
Is Ashneer Grover out of BharatPe?
No, the fintech startup has denied any rumours regarding the termination of the company’s co-founder, Ashneer Grover.
Archana Karthikeyan
