StartupTalky

Tag: Fintech Industry

  • muvin: India’s Teen-centric Pocket Money App

    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.

    muvin – Company Highlights

    Startup Name muvin
    Headquarters Bengaluru
    Industry Fintech
    Founder Mukund Rao and Vineet Gupta
    Founded 2020
    Total Funding Raised $4.5 Million
    Website muvin.in

    muvin – About
    muvin – Industry
    muvin – Founders and Team
    muvin – Startup Story
    muvin – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    muvin – Vision
    muvin – Products
    muvin – USP
    muvin – Business and Revenue Model
    muvin – Customer Acquisition
    muvin – Customer Retention Strategy
    muvin – Challenges Faced
    muvin – Funding
    muvin – Growth

    muvin – About

    As India’s teen-centric pocket money app, muvin, offers a safe & secure platform to conduct online & offline transactions in an effortless manner- through its wallet, physical prepaid card and industry’s first RuPay powered contactless keychain.

    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 of muvin
    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 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.

    Deployment of new-age technologies like AI, big-data analysis and cloud computing is helping it to offer an easy-to-understand, intuitive, friction-free and education-powered experience to the teens.

    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.

    Top 50 Leading Fintech Startups in India 2022
    The fintech industry has transformed after the entry of fintech startups like Paytm and Cred. Here’s a look at top fintech companies in India.
    StartupTalkyAshwini

    muvin – USP

    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.

    Top 12 Neobanks in India – 2022 | About Neobank Industry
    Neobanks Industry is getting popular and successful in the new digital world. Know about top Neobanks. Here is a list of best Neobanks in India.
    StartupTalkyRia Puneyani

    muvin – Funding

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    January 2022 Pre-Series A $3 Mn Alteria Capital and Krishna Bhupal, Co-Founder, Rational Pricing Technologies and board member of GVK Power & Infra
    April 2021 Seed $1.5 Mn 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 others

    Earlier in January 2022, muvin raised 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.

    Who is the brand ambassador of muvin?

    Hardik Pandya is the brand ambassador of muvin.

  • Takeoff Success Story – Online Mutual Fund Distribution Platform for Non-Individual Investors

    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 Takeoff.

    Investment is all about making your future a better place. It is for the financial security of their capital that one can enjoy in the future. When a person makes an investment, it is to ensure that they get to earn higher returns. Investing in mutual funds goal is not any different.

    Mutual funds are a form of investment if people are able to understand it clearly. Now, individuals are able to invest on their own in mutual funds. For non-individuals like businesses, trusts, and others, Takeoff has taken responsibility since 2020. It is India’s first online mutual fund distribution platform for non-individuals.

    StartupTalky brings all about Takeoff, the platform, its Startup Story, Founders and Team, Name, Tagline and Logo, Funding and Investors, Business Model and Revenue Model, Challenges, Competitors, Awards and Achievements, and more in the article ahead!

    Takeoff – Company Highlights

    Company Name Takeoff Fintech Pvt. Ltd.
    Headquarter Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
    Industry Financial Services
    Founded May 2020
    Founder Prasad R. Lendwe
    Employees 11-50
    Areas Served India
    Website www.takeoff.in/

    About Takeoff and How it Works?
    Takeoff – Industry
    Takeoff – Founders and Team
    Takeoff – Startup Story
    Takeoff – Mission and Vision
    Takeoff – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Takeoff – Business and Revenue Model
    Takeoff – Challenges Faced
    Takeoff – Growth
    Takeoff – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns
    Takeoff – Future Plans
    Takeoff – FAQ

    About Takeoff and How it Works?

    The service that Takeoff mainly provides is mutual fund distribution. The main USP is that the entire process is online and condensed from 30 days to 1 day. Companies can now have the luxury to choose from all the schemes from all the AMCs through an easy-to-access platform. They have 24×7 access and the support team is always just a call away.

    Takeoff also provides KYC services for non-individual clients like businesses, trusts, government bodies etc. Gone are the days when one has to send mountains of documents to the AMCs and has to suffer the two months of hassle while their KYC was being processed. The Takeoff team takes only minimal documents and gets the KYC processed within just 7-10 working days.

    Takeoff – Industry

    Takeoff operates in the financial services and mutual fund industry.

    Growth in mutual fund industry AUM:

    The mutual fund industry has witnessed a growth of 30.82% from 2020 to 2021 with Rs. 26.07 trillion AUM (Assets under Management) in 2020 to  Rs. 34.10 trillion AUM in 2021.

    Split of investor accounts:

    The total number of investor accounts of Takeoff as of March 21 was 9,78,65,529, from which  7,91,859 (0.81%) is Institutional investor accounts and  9,70,73,670 (99.19%) are Retail and HNI investor accounts.

    Split of industry assets:

    The Total industry assets of Takeoff as of June 21 is Rs. 34,10,403 crore, from which Retail investor assets is Rs. 18,33,568 crore and Institutional investor accounts are Rs. 15,76,835 crores.

    Takeoff – Founders and Team

    Prasad R. Lendwe - Founder of Takeoff
    Prasad R. Lendwe – Founder of Takeoff

    Takeoff is founded by Prasad R. Lendwe, an Electrical Engineer. He is an MBA droupout from Kalina University, Mumbai. Apart from being the founder of Takeoff, he runs a Finance based YouTube channel, Convey by Finnovationz as well and has more than 1.8 M Subscribers.

    The current size of the Takeoff team is 15-18 members. The work culture in Takeoff is very relaxed and informal. They believe in working hard and playing harder. It basically means, during office hours, one can find them hunched over their laptops. During lunch, however, the team can be found engaging in spirited table tennis tournaments and other games.

    Takeoff – Startup Story

    Before starting Takeoff, the company was focused on their Youtube channel Convey by FinnovationZ. Through this channel, they were able to spread financial awareness for the past 6 years.

    In Jan 2020, they decided to take some of their own advice and tried to invest on behalf of their company. There are some surplus in the current account and the fact that they are earning 0% interest on it bothered them a lot. After using platforms like Zerodha and Groww in the past, it was wrongly assumed that the process would be just as easy.

    It was only after the actual process started, they realised how difficult it is in reality. As there was no dedicated platform working towards the mutual fund investment needs of non-individualism, the idea of the formation of Takeoff first came into their mind.

    Takeoff – Mission and Vision

    Takeoff’s short-term vision is to spread awareness and encourage more non-individuals to begin their mutual fund investment journey. They intend on doing this by providing top-quality service and exploiting their first-mover advantage.

    Their long-term vision is to emerge as a complete investment solution for non-individuals and to become a one-stop destination for any kind of investment that companies and other non-individuals want to indulge in.

    The core belief is centred on the fact that non-individuals, whether its companies, trusts, proprietors, or any of the others, deserve the same facilities and the same ease that individuals do. In the past few years, thousands of platforms have cropped up for retail investors, but companies have, sadly, been left out. It is Takeoff intention to right this wrong and fixes the imbalance.

    Takeoff logo

    Takeoff Fintech Pvt. Ltd. is the officially registered name of the company.

    The company doesn’t have an active tagline yet.

    Success Story of PolicyBazaar | Business Model | Founders
    PolicyBazaar is the largest online insurance aggregator in India. Read to know PolicyBazaar’s Business model, funding, valuation, and its story.
    StartupTalkyShubham Kumar

    Takeoff – Business and Revenue Model

    Takeoff is working on a distribution model. The platform is currently free to use for all of their clients and it will always be free to use. Any non-individual can register and open accounts in Takeoff. No amount is charged from the clients. The revenue comes from the AMC (Asset management company). A fixed brokerage amount is paid for each AMC.

    Takeoff – Challenges Faced

    The lack of awareness among the non-individuals in India that they too can invest in mutual funds on behalf of their organization is the most challenging part of Takeoff. The conversion is not easy from a lead to an active investor, as the company has to explain the whole product and the industry at the same time over a very short span of time to their clients.

    Takeoff – Growth

    The journey from 0 to 100 Clients

    The journey was of severe ups and downs, like a roller coaster. Takeoff got their first client in December 2020 on their beta version and after some infertile months, the platform started gaining recognition, through several marketing campaigns. Currently, they have over 550 registered users and the company is experiencing slow but steady growth, they believe in value over volume.

    Customer Retention

    Takeoff believes that the best customer retention can be achieved only through superior customer service. Investments are a fairly complicated process, even if one makes it seems as easy as possible, clients will still have doubts. It is very important to make the clients feel as though the company is with them at each step along the way, in case they encounter any kinds of difficulties. This process has helped Takeoff in retaining its clients.

    Takeoff – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns

    Takeoff has tried various platforms and a plethora of campaigns to generate leads and convert them to active investors. LinkedIn ads and their own Convey YouTube channel have been proved a constant success for the company. The company is looking forward to more events and other activities so that they can reach out to the target audience and make the platform enriched with the soul vision of the company.

    Takeoff – Future Plans

    The company is doing quite well. It has started to make a name for itself and is experiencing a steady inflow of clients in future. Both their client base and the AUM have started to increase.

    Upstox | Indian Fintech Company | Company Profile |
    Upstox was established with the objective of making financial investing simple, fair & cheap for all Indian investors. Know more about it here.
    StartupTalkySarika Anand

    Takeoff – FAQ

    What is Takeoff?

    Takeoff is India’s first online mutual fund distribution platform for non-individuals. They help non-individuals like companies, government bodies etc to invest in mutual funds.

    Who is the founder of Takeoff?

    Takeoff is founded by Prasad R. Lendwe.

  • Ditto Sucess Story – Simplifying Insurance for Indian Consumers

    In the financial services sector, insurance is always an area that seems like quicksand for the people who lack proper knowledge. Besides, the insurance sector is one that has always been devoid of proper, credible advisors who would steer their clients to fortify their future. This is where the digital insurance advisory platforms are proven to be a huge boon. Ditto is one of the latest online insurance advisory platforms that was founded by the co-founders of Finshots in February 2021.

    Ditto Insurance has been headquartered in Bengaluru and has already raised Rs 4 crore from Zerodha in an initial funding round, the latter also picked up a majority stake in it. With Ditto, the founders hope to reiterate the success they gained with Finshots, which was launched in 2019 and already boasts of a subscription of over 5 lakh readers.

    So, let’s check out Ditto, its Founders and Team, Funding and Investors, Challenges, Future Plans, Products and Services, Name, Tagline and Logo, Startup Story, and more.

    Ditto – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Ditto
    Headquarters Bangalore
    Industry Fintech
    Founders Pawan Kumar Rai, Shrehith Karkera, Bhanu Harish Gurram and Lokesh Gurram
    Founded 2021
    Current CEO Pawan Kumar Rai

    About Ditto
    Ditto – Industry
    Ditto – Starting Up
    Ditto – Product and Services
    Ditto – Founders and Team
    Ditto – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Ditto – Business Model and Revenue model
    Ditto – Challenges Faced
    Ditto – Funding
    Ditto – Recognition and Achievements
    Ditto – FAQ

    About Ditto

    Finshots (The parent company of Ditto Insurance) is a 3-minute daily newsletter giving readers insights about all things economics and finance. Their vision is to create financial literacy among Indians by simplifying finance and financial products.

    The core belief of Finshots is that financial literacy is like basic arithmetic every person should know. Everyone should understand what’s happening with the economy, or what’s going on behind a financial scam – but the news is often full of technical jargon, making it obscure to the layperson. Hence, their main aim is to simplify finance for everyone and give trustworthy information that people can rely on.

    Ditto – Industry

    Finshots caters to the Fintech industry. They don’t have a target market for Finshots. They want to build an inclusive community of people willing to learn and understand financial concepts. On the other hand, for Ditto, their target market is the working population looking for insurance for themselves and their loved ones.

    Finshots currently has a user base of over 700K readers, while Ditto has helped more than 10,000+ people with their insurance queries.

    The fintech industry has massive scope, since investments, as well as insurance penetration, is severely lacking in the country. Only close to 2-3% of Indians have invested in equities, and insurance penetration is a meagre 3%. So the scope for growth in the industry is immense.

    Ditto – Starting Up

    After completing their MBA course, Bhanu Gurram, Shrehith Karkera and Pawan Kumar Rai founded Finception in 2018. Lokesh Gurram, an IIT Delhi graduate, worked for Samsung in South Korea for two years before joining the venture.

    They saw that financial news from major media houses was loaded with industry-specific terminology, as though it wasn’t intended for the masses. And so, Finception delivered explanatory long-form stories for a year. The objective was clear: To simplify financial news for the masses.

    In 2019, a separate brand called Finshots came about when the team realized that audiences suffered from information overload.

    Finshots delivers only one news a day. Readers spend just three minutes each day but in a month, they would have read about 28 topics.

    Finshots doesn’t spend a dime on advertising. Finshots’s subscriber base has grown to 500,000 just by the word of mouth. While Finshots educates people about the financial markets, readers are still left asking which financial product is best-suited to their needs.

    Then they launched Ditto, the latest product under the Finshots brand aimed at simplifying insurance policies for people. This is one of the many ways Finshots intends to simplify financial products and financial planning for the masses.

    The Boom of FinTech Industries in India – A Statistical Data Analysis
    The fintech industry in India is growing at a fast pace and is expected to reach $84 billion by 2025. Here’s a detailed insight of the fintech industry in India.
    StartupTalkyAnagha S

    Ditto – Product and Services

    Finshots is a financial newsletter that one can read in no longer than 3 minutes. They also have a podcast that covers the same content as their newsletter. Their product tries to resolve the problem of lack of financial literacy among people by offering information in plain, simple, lucid English, which is their USP.

    They started Finshots back in 2019 when they realised people wanted finance content simplified and this was a market gap they wanted to fill. They later launched Ditto Insurance, their latest venture which provides insurance advice. Ditto aims to help millennials make better financial decisions and they’ve started with insurance. They want to make a dent in the insurance industry by educating the masses so that people can compare policies, narrow down their choices per their requirements, avoid pitfalls and buy the policy best suited for them.

    Ditto – Founders and Team

    Ditto Founders
    Ditto Founders

    At IIMA, Bhanu, Shrehith Karkera and Pawan Kumar Rai were batchmates. At the time, Rai was working on a way to simplify stock markets for millennials. They say that millennials must be helped traversing these jargon minefields.

    The founders were also a part of IIM Ahmedabad’s IIMAvericks program which gave them a monthly stipend. Nevertheless, Karkera taught part-time classes at coaching institutes like T.I.M.E. and Career Launcher, so Finshots could hire more interns and grow.

    Shrehith handles most of Finshots content, while Bhanu & Pawan handle marketing and sales. Lokesh manages product and tech.

    Finshots have over 80 employees at present, working from home. But they try to create a work environment that makes everyone feel like they’re having fun in what they’re doing, rather than being crippled with piles of work. They also organise monthly activities to keep up team spirit.

    When it comes to hiring, they look more at the enthusiasm and work ethics an incoming employee brings to the team, rather than their background and resume.

    Ditto Logo
    Ditto Logo

    The idea of Finshots is ‘financial shots’ – think of it like coffee shots you take in the morning. That’s exactly how they want people to consume financial information, one shot at a time.

    “Our philosophy behind naming our insurance advisory as ‘Ditto’ is that we want to tell people what kind of policy we would buy if we were in their shoes. We want to tell them exactly what we would do, and they can then make a decision based on that. “

    Ditto – Business Model and Revenue model

    Finshots is completely free and they don’t intend to make any revenue off of it.

    “That’s part of the mission behind Finshots – we want to democratise financial information, offering our content for free is part of it. “

    Ditto, on the other hand, earns money through policy sales. They function as a distributor and help people with purchasing policies.

    Ditto – Challenges Faced

    The biggest challenge faced by Ditto was the fact that insurance is a push product. The industry practices include mis-selling policies and spam calling. The founders believe that a product like insurance has the power to make or break the financial strength of households and that’s why their approach towards insurance is to research, give the right advice, and simultaneously ensure peace of mind to families.

    On the other hand, the biggest challenge for Finshots was expanding the reach of the newsletter. It’s definitely not easy to make lakhs of people subscribe to and read your content on a regular basis. And there aren’t any viral marketing shortcuts here. So they mostly relied on good-old word of mouth marketing, social media and college partnerships. They sent college newsletters to students and got their first 1000 readers.

    How UPI Payments impacted FinTech Industry | UPI growth
    UPI Payments services have made payments quick, easy, and secure. Read the article to know why UPI payment is revolutionizing the Fintech Industry in India.
    StartupTalkyYash Gupta

    Ditto – Funding

    Date Stage Amount Investors Name
    Sep 2019 Seed Rs 4 Crore Rainmatter, Zerodha

    Ditto – FAQ

    What is Ditto by Finshots?

    Ditto functions as a distributor and helps people with purchasing insurance policies.

    Who are the founders of Ditto?

    Pawan Kumar Rai, Shrehith Karkera, Bhanu Harish Gurram and Lokesh Gurram are the founders of Ditto.

    How much funding has Ditto raised?

    Ditto Insurance has raised a total of Rs4 Crore funding from Zerodha in Dec 2021.

  • Top Companies that made lending easy in 2021

    This article is contributed by Sanjay Sharma, MD, Aye Finance.

    Getting a loan is something that bothers everyone with all the formalities and paperwork. But 2021 being the FY that has seen a financial crisis for various sectors, has been some or the other way boosted by various fintech companies that have helped them to manage and survive their businesses. Amongst various fintech companies, there are a few companies that made lending easy and hassle-free.

    Top Lending Companies in India –

    1. LendingKart
    2. Aye Finance
    3. Zip Loans
    4. Satya MicroCapital
    5. NeoGrowth Credit
    6. Save Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
    7. InCred

    LendingKart

    Lending Companies in India
    LendingKart – Lending Company

    With $1 billion of loans disbursed to around 1.3 lakh MSMEs across India since its inception, Lendingkart has been growing rapidly in MSME financing and one of the major reasons for this is its credit intelligence platform. Lendingkart’s proprietary underwriting model has been instrumental in providing credit sanctioned loans to 250k loans over the past 6 years but it is important to understand how it is being utilized by the firm itself.

    Aye Finance

    Lending Companies in India
    Aye Finance – Lending Institution

    Aye Finance founded by Sanjay Sharma MD is a commercial institution built around the mission to solve these challenges of funding MSMEs and enabling their inclusion into the mainstream of the economy. Aye Finance is equity-funded by three reputed Venture Capital Funds – Accion International, SAIF Partners, and LGT Impact ventures. It also has over a dozen providers who extend their debt funds for its MSME finance business. Aye offers Rs 1-3 lakhs line of credit for working capital to microenterprise owners who typically have sales of INR25-50 lakhs annually.

    Aye has successfully enabled the inclusion of 3 lakh micro enterprises having disbursed over Rs 4,000 crore to them.

    The Boom of FinTech Industries in India – A Statistical Data Analysis
    The fintech industry in India is growing at a fast pace and is expected to reach $84 billion by 2025. Here’s a detailed insight of the fintech industry in India.
    StartupTalkyAnagha S

    ZipLoan

    Lending Companies in India
    Ziploan – Lending Company

    Ziploan is a tech-enabled RBI registered NBFC that provides loans to small businesses. The platform addresses the need of the SME sector, which has been ignored by financial institutions. The platform generates a unique ZipScore for each loan applicant by developing an automated underwriting algorithm.

    Satya MicroCapital

    Lending Companies in India
    Satya MicroCapital – Lending Company

    Satya MicroCapital Limited is an NBFC-MFI that serves low-income entrepreneurs in rural and urban areas. The company provides prompt, convenient, and affordable collateral-free credit to unbanked and underserved people through a strong credit assessment and centralized approval system. Satya MicroCapital’s firm belief in modern technology and its potential to increase efficiency, reduce risks, and enhance the overall customer experience is apparent in its adoption of cutting-edge innovations to power its operations.

    Top 10 Fintech companies providing Lending Services in India
    If you have a small business and startup and are looking to get a loan. Here are Top 10 Fintech companies that provide lending services in India.
    StartupTalkyPratyusha Srivastava

    NeoGrowth Credit

    Lending Companies in India
    NeoGrowth – SME Lending Platform

    NeoGrowth is an SME lending platform, registered with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The NBFC’s approach includes innovative technology and a digital payment ecosystem along with flexible repayment options. NeoGrowth aims to bridge the credit gap for MSMEs by offering customized products to address customers’ multiple business needs.

    Save Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

    Lending Companies in India
    Save Solutions – Lending Company

    Save Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is one of the country’s largest Business Correspondent Networks. The Bihar-based company is focusing on giving access to Financial Products via kiosk banking and customer service points (CSPs) to rural and semi-urban unbanked citizens. Expanding rapidly, the SSPL group has roots across India in 488 districts, with over 12,000 kiosks in rural areas. The company employs over 25,000 people across these locations at its Customer Service Points (CSPs) and Kiosks. All the employees are provided training in computer and cash management systems to improve client enrolment and service delivery, thereby helping improve Save Solutions’ overall service performance.

    KreditBee Company Profile – Get Easy Instant Personal Loans!
    KreditBee is an instant personal loan platform that lends Rs.1000 – Rs. 2 Lakhs. Know about the company details of KreditBee, founders, etc.,
    StartupTalkyChayanika Goswami

    InCred

    Lending Companies in India
    InCred – Lending Company

    InCred is a new-age financial services group founded with the vision of providing credit to Incredible India and thus, furthering financial inclusion in the country. The company endeavors to disrupt the status quo in traditional lending that seems to exclude those most in need of credit, due to outdated, rigid, and often inefficient processes. The company has designed its products with a razor-sharp focus on serving the unique needs of these under-served segments of customers and leverages technology and data science to make lending quick, simple, and hassle-free. It aspires to be the key partner for all financial requirements of an Indian family.

    Founded in the year 2016 by Bhupinder Singh, former head of Investment Banking Deutsche Bank Asia-Pacific, the company launched market operations in January 2017. InCred offers a broad portfolio of products that cut across key categories such as Personal Loans, SME Loans & Education Loans.

  • Yap – Transforming Every Business Into a Fintech

    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 Yap.

    Technology has transformed the way financial transactions and operations happen. Today making and accepting payments, receiving loans, everything has become simpler than ever before. All thanks to tech startups, that are coming up with amazing products that have made financial operations much easier for financial institutions, business owners, and consumers. Chennai-based ‘Yap’ is one such startup that this revolutionizing the way banks and other financial institutions offer services to their customers. Yap provides tools that let banks and financial institutions design customized and convenient solutions for their customers. Here is more about Yap.

    Yap – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Yap
    Also Known As M2P Solutions
    Headquarters Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
    Industry Fintech
    Founders Madhusudanan R, Prabhu R
    Founded Nov 14, 2014
    CEO Madhusudanan R.
    Website www.m2pfintech.com

    Yap – About
    Yap – Latest News
    Yap – Founders and Team
    Yap – Startup Story
    Yap – Mission and Vision
    Yap – Logo
    Yap – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Yap – Employees
    Yap – Funding and Investors
    Yap – Growth
    Yap – Competitors
    Yap – Future Plans
    Yap – FAQs

    Yap – About

    Yap offers a payments-as-a-service infrastructure that can handle all types of retail payment assets. Yap’s Application Programming Interface (API) platform allows digital platforms, fintech companies, and offline businesses to offer personalized solutions to their end customers, by linking them with other fintech platforms and banking and non-banking financial firms.

    Yap’s functional APIs, let its clients receive and transfer funds through  Wallet & Cards, Cross Border Payments, Gift Cards, Fleet Spends, Just-In-Time Funding, UPI as well as other payment methods. Consumer, corporate, small business, and credit card loans are among the products it offers.

    Yap’s modular platform ‘bank in a box’ enables its clients to offer products such as opening bank account, credit, online payment, toll payment, foreign exchange solutions, etc.

    Many companies in Nepal, India, New Zealand, the UAE, Australia, and the Philippines are served by YAP. Around 20 Indian banks, including ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, and RBL Bank, as well as numerous consumer internet companies like Ola, Cred, Swiggy, and also large NBFCs like Muthoot, TVS Credit, Bharat pe, Razorpay, Finin, etc use YAP’s services on the lending space.

    Yap – Latest News

    In March 2021, Yap raised $10 Million in funding from investors like Flourish Ventures and Omidyar Network India. The fundraising round included participation from YAP’s current investors, including Beenext, 8i Ventures, and Better Capital.

    “We are uniquely poised to cater to new cohorts of distributors as more firms embed financial services into their digital platforms. This investment allows us to strengthen our technology teams, build new capabilities as well as reach new markets across Asia,” Madhusudanan R, co-founder at Yap, said.

    Mswipe , affordable Point of Sale system for Small Business
    Mswipe offers POS, business loans, apps that help businesses manage inventory, build their online store, and a lot more. Mswipe company details
    StartupTalkySarika Anand

    Yap – Founders and Team

    Yap was founded by Madhusudanan R and Prabhu R.

    Madhusudanan R

    Madhusudanan R is the Chief Executive Officer & Founder at YAP. He is a fintech entrepreneur with deep-rooted experience in building and scaling Payments businesses across Asia.

    Prabhu R

    Prabhu R is the Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer at YAP.

    Yap – Startup Story

    Madhusudanan R. and Muthukumar A and came up with the Yap idea during the office tea breaks. The founders who worked at Visa Inc in Mumbai from 2010 to 2012, often realized how big banks were lagging behind in digitizing their services. The focus of these conversations was always on how the financial industry might fix this problem. Finally, Madhusudanan and Muthukumar, came up with a solution themselves and founded Yap in 2014.

    The Yap founders observed how banks work in India, through their combined expertise of over a decade working for Visa, Citibank, and Paypal. They understood that due to their aversion to developing new digital products, banks were unable to reach a whole new set of clients. Yap is a solution to these problems, Yap’s is empowering many banks, financial institutions, and businesses to offer various customized solutions to its customers.

    YAP’s unique API (application programming interface) gives banks and fintech businesses the tools they need to create new payment systems. This shortens the time it takes for these businesses to acquire consumers who want simple and quick electronic payment options.

    “When we started, banks in India didn’t use any APIs. In other markets, like the US, this phenomenon started ten years ago. In India, it started around 2014–15, when a few digital payment companies started to grow,” Madhusudanan, co-founder of YAP, told.

    The firm claims to deal with 15 banks in India at the moment. Apart from providing an API for payment integration, including UPI payments, YAP also assists them in acquiring corporate clients, which are often digital financial institutions such as neobanks or the fintech divisions of big corporations.

    “They don’t have to spend any money on this, and they can reach a lot larger audience without having to spend money on client acquisition,” Madhusudanan explained.

    Yap – Mission and Vision

    Yap’s mission statement says, “We are focused on user experience and customer retention. We are constantly thinking of new use cases and ways to serve our customers across all their financial needs as seamlessly woven into their daily routine life as possible.”

    YAP is on a mission to transform every business into a fintech.

    Company Logo of Yap
    Company Logo of Yap

    Yap – Business Model and Revenue Model

    Yap provides B2B tech solutions to financial institutions and businesses. The YAP platform connects companies to licensed banks, financial institutions, and financial infrastructure such as UPI/card networks through its extensive Application Programming Interface (API) libraries. Within a few weeks, a company may connect to YAP’s platform, choose goods and banking partners, and roll out financial products to its consumers or vendors. In addition, YAP oversees essential continuing activities like reconciliations and compliance monitoring. YAP now serves over 200 fintech with an API platform.

    Coronavirus Impact on Digital Payments Startups
    The coronavirus pandemic could be devastating for many companies, but it’s also shining a spotlight on the power of fintechs across the world. Here is the Covid19 impact on online payment startups and consumer spending
    StartupTalkyVarad Kitey

    Yap – Employees

    • Rajesh Wadhwa – Chief Business Officer
    • Prabhu R – Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer
    • Muthukumar A – Chief Technology Officer
    • Madhusudanan R – Chief Executive Officer & Founder

    Yap – Funding and Investors

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Mar 16, 2021 Series B ₹732M Flourish Ventures, Omidyar Network India
    Apr 21, 2020 Series A $4.5M BEENEXT
    Feb 13, 2020 Seed Round ₹100M Amrish Rau

    Yap – Growth

    Around 20 Indian businesses, including ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, and RBL Bank, as well as numerous prominent consumer internet companies like Ola and PaisaBazaar, use the service.

    “We are uniquely poised to cater to new cohorts of distributors as more firms embed financial services into their digital platforms. This investment allows us to strengthen our technology teams, build new capabilities as well as reach new markets across Asia,” Madhusudanan said.

    The 6-year-old firm offers comprehensive Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to banks, startups, and consumer online businesses. The new funds (raised in March 2021) will be utilized to expand into foreign markets and bolster the team with new hires.

    Yap – Competitors

    The top competitors of Yap are

    • Open Bank Project
    • Decentro
    • TrueLayer
    • Teller, Inc.
    • Plaid
    • Konsentus
    • Figo
    • Quovo
    • Instantor.

    Lendingkart – Meeting the Working Capital Needs of MSMEs
    An ex-ISRO scientist and a CA came forward to build a startup that is helping MSMEs acquire working capital. Read the full story of Lendingkart here
    StartupTalkyChayanika Goswami

    Yap – Future Plans

    Yap’s major plans include expansion to new geographies and expanding the team.  According to Madhusudanan R, co-founder of YAP, the company intends to grow to Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

    India’s rapidly digitizing financial environment, according to Amol Warange, head of Omidyar Network India, would provide chances for YAP to expand.

    “We think that digital enablers like YAP can catalyze financial inclusion and promote adoption of financial products among the next 500 million Indians who are projected to access the internet for the first time via their mobile phones” Warange added.

    Yap – FAQs

    What does Yap do?

    Yap offers a payments-as-a-service infrastructure that can handle all types of retail payment assets. The company’s platform links banks, financial institutions, enterprises, payment networks, and merchants to build an interoperable payment platform that allows businesses to quickly design and carry out their own customized payment solutions.

    Which country is Yap based in?

    Yap is a Chennai-based, Indian fintech company.

    Who founded Yap?

    Yap was founded by Madhusudanan R and Prabhu R.

    Which companies do Yap compete with?

    Open Bank Project, Decentro, TrueLayer, Teller, Inc., Plaid, Konsentus, Figo, Quovo, and Instantor are the top ten competitors of YAP.

  • Finly – Tools to Help Businesses Manage Expenses Better

    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 Finly.

    Keeping track of expenses and payables is crucial for every business. Account Payable automation or AP automation software simplifies tasks like submitting invoices, managing approvals, and processing payments in a fast, error-free and transparent manner. This is the reason why many businesses are adopting Accounts payable automation these days. As reported by Adroit Market Research, the Account Payable Automation software market will be valued at US $ 4 Billion by 2025. One of the top companies providing this software in India is Finly. Finly also offers software for expense management, e-procurement, budgeting and offers various expense and budget-related insights that can help managers and accounting professionals take important business decisions.

    In this article, we have covered all about Finly, its founders, the story behind the inception of the startup, its products, revenue, and plans.

    Finly – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Finly
    Headquarters Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
    Industry Financial Services, Accounting, Information Technology, FinTech
    Founders Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G
    Founded 2015
    Current CEO Veekshith Rai
    Website www.finly.io

    Finly – Latest News
    About Finly and How it Works?
    Finly – Name and Logo
    Finly – Founder and History
    Finly – Mission and Vision
    Finly – Business Model
    Finly – Revenue and Growth
    Finly – Funding and Investors
    Finly – Competitors
    Finly – Challenges Faced
    Finly – Future Plans
    Finly – FAQs

    Finly – Latest News

    In December 2019, Finly raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors like Gemba Capital, AngelList India, Omphalos Ventures, Social Capital, and 91springboard.

    We believe the team has built a fantastic SaaS product for the global market,” said Adith Podhar, Gemba Capital managing partner. “With Finly, a CFO can time his payments to better manage cash and capture early payment discounts, reduce invoice processing time and costs, and engage the accounts payable department in more strategic, higher-value activities.” Adith added.

    About Finly and How it Works?

    Finly is a financial management and governance software business. It provides a platform that enables businesses to automate, get visibility into, and manage their expenditure swiftly.

    Finly created cloud-based expenditure management software to automate all corporate payments and transactions. The company’s software allows businesses to use cashless transactions by providing expenditure management, money distribution, digital payments, automated collection, and vendor payments.

    Finly began with a simple notion: to help businesses better understand their spending and costs. Finly was created to help your organization establish better procedures, resulting in a system that is much more cost-effective and time-efficient. They believe that by replacing standard cost reporting systems with Finly, they would be able to make the entire process more hassle-free, resulting in higher employee satisfaction.

    Finly offers a SaaS component that automates all financial operations within the company. To digitize all external financial transactions, the SaaS component connects with every type of payment instrument in India (UPI/ NEFT/ IMPS/ RTGS/ Prepaid Cards/ Credit Cards) enabling businesses to make seamless transactions.

    The SaaS solution allows multiple stakeholders (spender/reviewer/finance team/vendors) to interact and cooperate while giving the finance team comprehensive insight. The solution maintains all internal corporate systems up to date with real-time financial activities.

    Finly maintains all corporate business systems in sync and provides the most dynamic reporting on the industry by giving the company comprehensive visibility into its spending. Their objective is to give finance teams technology and analytics that allow them to have powerful insights into their spending, allowing them to make informed strategic decisions and removing any cost management roadblocks as your company grows.

    Finly offers software for company cost management, digital cash distribution, vendor payments, and GST-compliant invoicing and payments to assist businesses to automate and simplify their spending.

    Best Accounting Software Options for SaaS Businesses
    There are a couple of key things that differentiate the best SaaS accounting software options from the rest of the crowd. Here’s the list of the best accounting software for SaaS companies.
    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    The ‘Fin’ in Finly refers to the company’s financial management and governance software business.

    Finly' s Company Logo
    Finly’ s Company Logo

    Finly’s tagline says, “Control, Optimize & Strategically Reduce Business Spend By Digitising Accounts Payable Process with a Scalable AP Automation System”

    Finly – Founder and History

    Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G founded Finly in 2015.

    Veekshith Rai - Co-founder and CEO of Finly
    Veekshith Rai – Co-founder and CEO of Finly 

    Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G had been friends since they were adolescents, and after graduating from an engineering school in Bengaluru in 2012, they got interested in digital money. Veekshith worked for Mindfree Labs, and Vivek for Accion, and they both worked in IT. However, after only 3 years, they realized they had arrived at a major revenue opportunity: expenditure management.

    Finly, a company expenditure, and cost management solution, was born out of this need.

    “Before settling on this concept, we had honed in on five challenges we were interested in solving,” Veekshith explains. “We put together pitch decks and contacted industry experts, investors, and advisers. We froze upon Finly and developed a prototype to obtain our first set of clients after feedback, numerous revisions, and a lot of deep ideation.”

    During the initial stage, the founders narrowed down possible clients regarding the problem and other factors and shared the product concept with Chief financial officers. After receiving a partial payment, they began development on the system and rolled it out in stages.

    Finly – Mission and Vision

    Finly’s mission and vision statement say, “Finly Corporation is committed to providing our clients with a high-quality product and outstanding service. When clients use any of our goods or services to develop projects, we try to offer them security and peace of mind. We strive to be at the forefront of innovative technology and manufacturing processes.”

    Finly – Business Model

    Finly is focusing on the B2B market since the B2C market has been significantly disrupted by technology like UPI and applications such as PayTM and PhonePe, which have reduced reliance on cash.

    Businesses, on the other hand, continue to rely on traditional payment processing systems. This is mainly because of two reasons: banks’ ongoing concentration on major operations and their failure to consumerize modern banking technology with software commodities that address current business demands.

    Finly’s business model is built on a per-user, per-month cost that is determined by the module selected by the client. They also demand a transaction fee, which is determined by the form of transaction utilized by the company.

    “Payments, an integral part of financial operations, remain disconnected from current processes. But payment technologies like UPI, currently open only to the B2C segment, will further drive adoption of digital payments when rolled out to the B2B segment,” says Vivek.

    10 Best Billing and Invoicing Software for Your Business
    Billing and invoicing software are important tools for any business. This list will help you to come up with the best invoice software for your business.
    StartupTalkyAshwini

    Finly – Revenue and Growth

    • Finly’s yearly revenue is now projected to be $7.1 million.
    • Finly’s revenue per employee is expected to be $145,000.

    The founders invested little more than Rs 1 crore in the firm, which is producing close to Rs 7 crore in revenue. The founders however have not confirmed the company’s revenue.

    Finly – Funding and Investors

    Finly raised an undisclosed amount of funding in December 2019.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Dec 21, 2019 Seed Round – Das42 Capital, Gemba Capital, Social Capital, 91springboard

    Finly – Competitors

    Finly is a SaaS company that competes with Expensify, SAP Concur, Zoho, Pleo, G2 Storefront, Happay, and Fyle.

    Finly – Challenges Faced

    According to Veekshith, the road ahead isn’t really a bed of roses.

    • Changing the habits of finance teams is one of the company’s difficulties. However, Finly combats this challenge with a robust customer success staff that follows up with its clients after the transaction.
    • The other challenge for the company is having strong business professionals with a mix of sales, technology, and financial skills.

    All About Accounting Software for SaaS
    With the right accounting software for SaaS businesses, you can achieve a seamless flow of data between all financial processes in your business which would ultimately enter your cloud accounting system, ideally automatically.
    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    Finly – Future Plans

    Finly presently works with over 100 clients, and is working to increase the client base. The company will add more intelligent products to its suite in future.

    V Ganapathy, CEO of Axilor Ventures, says: “This market is a big opportunity and this startup helps clients track all their financial expenses. We believe Finly has figured out the market reach and is scaling fast.”

    Finly gives CFOs and finance teams comprehensive insight and control over payables. All while improving Finance Teams’ productivity by over 80% via the use of a sophisticated Finance Communication Framework to automate tedious and repetitive procedures and ease wireless communication within Finance Teams. With its intelligent software Finly is all set to change the way Finance teams across industries work.

    Speaking about Finly’s vision, co-founder Vivek AG says, “We think that the future generation of finance teams will not spend time on manual labor for day-to-day activities such as processing vendor payments, reconciling invoices, tracking advances, and so on. Finly will assist finance teams in important duties such as analyzing and tracking vital indicators related to the company’s growth.”

    Finly – FAQs

    What does Finly do?

    Finly is a financial management and governance software business. It provides a platform that enables businesses to automate, get visibility into, and manage their expenditure.

    Who founded Finly?

    Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G founded Finly in 2015.

    How does Finly make money?

    Their business model is built on a per-user, per-month cost that is determined by the module selected by the client. They also demand a transaction fee, which is determined by the form of transaction utilized by the company.

    Which companies do Finly compete with?

    Finly is a SaaS company that competes with Expensify, SAP Concur, Expensify, Zoho, Pleo, G2 Storefront, Happay, and Fyle.

  • Top 8 Leading Fintech Startups in China

    Fintech is one of the leading industries in the world because of many emerging unicorns in the sector. The fintech industry has become a game-changer for banking services industries as it has been tremendously impacted by Technology enterprises. Most Fintech startups offer financial services such as mobile payment, digital banking, insurance, crowdfunding, wealth management, or recently even digital currencies like cryptocurrency.

    Fintech companies nowadays have to rely on advanced technology like datasets, Internet of Things (IoT) artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, or even blockchain in order to provide their services. Fintech currently has over 79 Unicorns globally making it the largest sector with the most number of Unicorns, while there are more upcoming fintech startups that will be added to the list.

    The global Fintech market was said to be valued at $111 billion, while it is now expected to grow to more than $158 billion by 2023. China is often considered one of the leading countries in the sector of financial technology. The country so far has over 2,160 Fintech startups out of which over 18 are already unicorns. According to some studies over half of the world’s digital payments were made in the country using apps like Alipay and WeChat in 2017.

    In 2018, China received over $25.5 billion investments into its fintech industry making it the leader in this sector. Even to this date china continues to be the leader in the industry because it completed over 600 plus deals in 2018 alone, the country also has the highest fintech adoption rate of 69% in the world.

    China went through a Fintech boom because many startups wanted to fill the gap of traditional banking which lacked in the country by introducing fintech services that fulfilled the needs of ordinary people and SMEs. Because of the growth of the fraudulent practices in the Chinese sector in China, the Government has come up with rules and regulations including 65 national financial standards and 252 financial industry standards to control them.

    The fintech startups in China are targeting the middle class in the sectors of wealth management, different types of insurance and private banking as the services like mobile payment is already popular in the country.

    Tencent
    Ant Financial
    Lufax
    Bitmain
    Dianrong
    Ping An
    JD Digits (Formerly JD Finance)
    Renrenxing Technology
    Frequently Asked Questions

    Top 9 Edtech Startups in China that are leading the Industry
    One of the countries that is witnessing the fastest growth in the Edtech industry is China. Here’s a list of top 9 Edtech startups in China.
    StartupTalkyPV Vyshnavi

    Here’s a list of top fintech startups in China.

    Tencent

    Company Tencent
    Founded year 1998
    Headquarters Shenzhen (China)
    Funding $12.6 Billion
    Investors Lippo Group, Prosus & Naspers, PCCW, IDG Capital

    Tencent Logo
    Tencent Logo

    Tencent is considered to be one of the largest gaming companies in the world, but also has a foothold in the Fintech industry. Over the years the company has come up with top-notch payment services through WeChat, which was considered to be the first online-only bank offering wealth management and other financial services in China. Through WeChat Pay the company has made many strategic investments and third-party marketplaces, increasing its valuation to $21 billion in 2018.

    The company was initially founded by Ma Huateng, Tony Zhang, Xu Chenye, Chen Yidan and Zeng Liqing in 1998, with its headquarters based in Shenzhen, China. The main competitor to Tencent in the fintech sector is Alipay which is under Alibaba. By the end of 2019, WeChat had is estimated 800 million users and 50 million merchants on the platform every month. This is why Tencent is one of the most financially valuable companies in the world.

    Ant Financial

    Company Ant Financial
    Founded year 2014
    Headquarters Hangzhou (China)
    Funding $22 Billion
    Investors General Atlantic, Meros Equity Global Management, Warburg Pincus, The Carayle Group, Credit Suisse, Temasek Holdings, Sequoia Capital, Khazanah Nasional, Silver Lake

    Ant Financial Logo
    Ant Financial Logo

    Ant Financial is one of the top fintech startups in China that was founded in 2014 with its headquarters in Hangzhou, China. Ant Financial provides various digital payment services for both customers and businesses.

    Ant Financial is known for its Alipay mobile wallets which offer financial services like transferring money to bank accounts, bill payments, online or offline mobile bill payments, among others. The brands under Ant Financial are Alipay, Ant Fortune, Yu’e Bao, Zhima Credit, MYbank and Ant Financial Cloud.

    Alipay also allows SMEs to accept online payments from customers through cards, corporate credit solutions and Bank transfers. Ant Financial Group is a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group which is a Chinese eCommerce giant and is also said to be the world’s most valuable Unicorn Company.

    As of 2018, the company has over 87 million users across the world along with JV partners, currently, it has over 1.2 billion users worldwide. Besides its mobile wallet services, Ant Financial is also a leading fundraising company in the country.

    What is the Common Prosperity Bill being imposed in China | How will it impact China?
    Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced his goal of Common Prosperity, a bill that can narrow the growing wealth gap in China. Read to find out more about the bill.
    StartupTalkyPV Vyshnavi

    Lufax

    Company Lufax
    Founded year 2011
    Headquarters Shanghai (China)
    Funding –
    Investors HarbourVest Partners

    Lufax Logo
    Lufax Logo

    Lufax is a popular online wealth management and P2P lending platform for personal loans. The company provides insurance services to both individuals and institutions with advanced technology like AI and Cloud. Lufax was founded by 2011 in Shanghai, China and was originally set up by Ping An as an incubation project.

    It currently is the second-largest P2P lender in the country and is planning to branch out its business gradually to work with funds and insurance companies. In 2018, the company also expanded its services to Singapore, the same year it also came out with a new blockchain solution that identifies users and tracks transactions, especially between borrowers and lenders. Lufax is said to be the best Internet financing industry in China as it has accelerated the marketing process.

    Bitmain

    Company Bitmain
    Founded year 2013
    Headquarters Beijing (China)
    Funding $764.7 million
    Investors Temasek Holdings, Crimson Ventures, Noris Capital, Newegg, Coatue, Sequoia Capital China, CAS Investment Management, Jumbo Sheen Group, HuangPu River Capital

    Bitmain Logo
    Bitmain Logo

    Bitcoin is a well-known Edtech startup that provides hardware-based mining solutions for Cryptocurrencies. The company was started by Micree Zhan, Jihan Wu in 2013 with its headquarters based in Beijing, China. Bitmain is known for providing hardware-based mining (ASIC) solutions for bitcoin mining. By 2018, the company became the largest designer of ASIC chips for bitcoin mining.

    Besides ASIC chips the company also makes servers, simple routers, AI applications, mining tools and other services & products for blockchain. Bitmain also operates BTC.com and Antpool which became the biggest pool for bitcoin. Bitcoin introduced Bitmain Technology in 2013 that successfully engaged with the field of AI and increased power consumption speed.

    Why is China limiting gaming? | How will it impact Gaming Startups?
    On August 31st 2021, the Chinese government has imposed restrictions on online gaming in order to curb gaming addiction among minors. Keep reading to find more.
    StartupTalkyPV Vyshnavi

    Dianrong

    Company Dianrong
    Founded year 2013
    Headquarters Shanghai (China)
    Funding $549 million
    Investors Simon Investment Managers, EG Capital Advisors, Affirma Capital, ORIX Asia Capital, CITIC Securities, China Minsheng Investment Group, GIC

    Dianrong Logo
    Dianrong Logo

    Dianrong is a leading peer to peer platform for personal loans. The company was founded in 2012 with its headquarters in Shanghai, China. Dianrong provides products and service offerings like credit ratings, investment products, marketplace lending solutions risk management and operation tools.

    In 2018, the company created a supply chain finance solution designed especially for finance and business. The company provides a well planned and secure infrastructure for industry data and insights.

    Ping An

    Company Ping An
    Founded year 1988
    Headquarters Shenzhen (China)
    Funding $4.8 billion
    Investors –

    Ping An Logo
    Ping An Logo

    Ping An Technology is the main subsidiary of Ping An Group a multinational conglomerate. The company is in charge of the financial sector that provides services like insurance, banking, investment, and numerous other internet businesses. The company went on to create Lufax and Oneconnect which are both well-known fintech companies in China.

    The company was founded in 2008 and initially provided IT services to firms within the Ping An Insurance Group. Ping An also allows its customers to use its P2P lending services over AI technology. Ping An was the first insurance company to be selected on the index and is currently the World’s top global insurance brand in 2020.

    Why did the Chinese Government Ban the ride-hailing firm Didi?
    The Chinese government has banned China’s biggest ride-hailing firm, Didi. Lets find out Why is Didi banned in china
    StartupTalkyAlan Joseph

    JD Digits (Formerly JD Finance)

    Company JD Digits
    Founded year 1998
    Headquarters Beijing (China)
    Funding CN¥ 34 billion
    Investors CICC, COFCO, APOFCO, Sequoia Capital China, China Creation Ventures, China Taiping Insurance, Intonation Ventures, Harvest Global Investments

    JD Finance is one of the leading Chinese fintech companies that was started by the JD Group in 2013. JD Group is one of the biggest B2C online retailers in China. The company has its headquarters in Beijing, China and aims to become the most trustworthy internet investment and funding platform. The company provides its customers with services for investment and financial management, which are easy, high yielding and safe.

    The company uses advanced technology big data, AI, cloud computing, blockchain and IoT for providing its financial services. JD Finance is estimated to be $20 billion as it raised over $1.9 billion in 2018. The company comprises 10 business divisions that cover different types of covering corporate and consumer finance needs.

    Renrenxing Technology

    Company Renrenxing Technology
    Founded year 2014
    Headquarters Beijing (China)
    Funding CN¥ 4.5 billion

    Renrenxing Technology is another popular Chinese Edtech startup that is known for developing applications for borrowing and lending money. The company started Jiedaibao in 2015 which has its headquarters in Beijing, China. Jiedaibao is a leader in providing peer to peer services for lending and borrowing money, besides that it also offers services like matching, registration, collection and other services for small loans for customers and SMEs.

    The company is now known to be the country’s top tech unicorn company as its valuation is estimated to be over $10 billion. Through Jiedaibao, Renrenxing Technology has come up with an app that helps in deciding interest rates independently and based on that it generates an electronic contract that is legal. This enables their customers to get personal loans at a fixed price and get reminded of the repayment or expiry of the contract.

    List of Top Startup Incubators in China
    If you are looking for funding and support for your startups, Here are Top Startup Incubators in China you should consider.
    StartupTalkyPratyusha Srivastava

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What are the top Fintech startups in China?

    The top Fintech startups in China are Renrenxing Technology, JD Finance, Ping An, Dianrong, Bitmain, Lufax, Ant Financial and Tencent.

    How many fintech startups does China have?

    The country so far has over 2,160 Fintech startups out of which over 18 are already unicorns.

    What is the valuation of the global fintech market?

    The global Fintech market was said to be valued at $111 billion, while it is now expected to grow to more than $158 billion by 2023.

  • Story of Upside AI: Tech-driven Asset Management Company

    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 Upside AI.

    Upside AI is a SEBI-registered PMS (Portfolio Management Service). Founded by Kanika Agarrwal, Nikhil Hooda and Atanuu Agarrwal, Upside AI creating a new class of investing that sit between active and passive – its goal is to deliver consistent alpha through eliminating bias/emotions from the process.

    Today, Upside AI ranks among the top-performing PMS’ in the country delivering 33% annualized returns since it came out of beta in Jul 2019. family offices. asset management is a highly fragmented market and is not a winner-take-all play. Even at a sub-1% market share, Upside AI can scale to ~$5B in AUM while delivering a robust return on capital.

    Startuptalky interviewed the Founders of Upside AI to get insights on the startup story and the roadmap of the organization. In this article, you’ll get to know all about Upside AI’s history, how it launched, its future plans, competitors, funding details, growth, and more.

    Upside AI – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Upside AI
    Co-Founders Kanika Agarrwal, Nikhil Hooda, Atanuu Agarrwal
    Founded 2017
    Headquarters Mumbai
    Industry Fintech
    Website upsideai.com

    Upside AI – About and Vision
    Upside AI – Market/Industry Details
    Journey of Upside AI – How is Started
    How Upside AI works – Product and USP
    Upside AI – Founders and Team
    Upside AI – Business Model
    Growth of Upside AI
    Upside AI – Funding and Investors
    Upside AI – Competitors
    Upside AI – Recognition and Achievements
    Upside AI – Future Plans
    Upside AI – FAQs

    Upside AI – About and Vision

    Upside AI is a SEBI-registered PMS (Portfolio Management Service). It is essentially an investment management startup that uses technology to drive investment decisions. Nikhil Hooda, Kanika Agarrwal, and Atanuu Agarrwal started Upside AI with the belief that technology will make better decisions than humans over the long term since machines are unbiased and unemotional decision-makers. It is therefore focused on building products that follow a rules-based, systematic approach to investing.

    Upside AI’s first two products focus on equity investing using proprietary machine learning algorithms to understand, recognize, and buy companies that are fundamentally good businesses. It provides Portfolio Management Services or PMS, which caters to HNI’s, institutions, and family offices in India and globally. The minimum investment size is INR 50 lakhs.

    Upside AI logo

    The team wants Upside AI to be a world-class 100% tech-driven asset management company (AMC). They aim to achieve this by building an array of products across asset classes and strategies. Apart from the two live products, Upside AI has another couple of products in development, which it plans to launch over the next 6-12 months (2021-2022). Over the next couple of years, the company aims to add 1,000 HNIs, family offices, and institutional clients and grow to INR ~1,000cr in AUM.

    “We are also working on building an end-to-end digital platform where we want tech to drive the entire chain from client onboarding to sophisticated investment tech to live tracking and reporting via a seamless UI/UX experience for clients”  as said by the Founders of Upside AI.

    Ultimate Checklist for beginners to pick quality stocks
    Stock picking has become an essential step to achieve a positive return. If you are a beginner in stock trading, Here’s a checklist to help you choose quality stock.
    StartupTalkyPratyusha Srivastava

    Upside AI – Market/Industry Details

    The asset management market in India today is INR 52 trillion (as of December 2020). Retail mutual fund penetration in India is very low (~6% of GDP vs. ~36% in other emerging markets and ~60-70% in developed markets.) Hence, it has been growing at ~25-30% over the last 5 years; the team @ Upside AI expect this momentum to continue.

    Over the last decade, tech has disrupted several areas of financial services like payments, lending, insurance, etc. However, asset management has stayed the same in India i.e., human investors taking calls and large armies of sales/ back-end staff running distribution and operations.

    Over the next 5 years, Upside AI aims to create off-the-shelf, standardized products across asset classes that can be pre-packaged and sold to even retail investors. Distribution will be built online with end-to-end integrations with brokerages and bank accounts. The back-end ops and reporting that the team is building are already online and extremely scalable.

    By its nature, asset management is a highly fragmented market and is not a winner-take-all play. Even at a sub-1% market share, Upside AI can scale to ~$5B in AUM while delivering a robust return on capital (even traditional players with large physical networks today have 30%+ ROEs) by leveraging digital distribution and algo-based systematic investment.
    (Source: AMFI, McKinsey’s Asset management database)

    Journey of Upside AI – How is Started

    Spark of Idea: Upside AI

    “Graham is my guru in every sense of the word. I had no background in finance or investing when I picked up “The Intelligent Investor” almost 15 years ago. It led me to Graham’s other seminal work “Security Analysis”, meant for professional investors. They are the inspiration and spark behind the idea for Upside AI. They led me to the framework for our core algorithm” – Atanuu Agarrwal (Co-founder, Upside AI) added.

    Here’s a list of Must-Read Books written by Top Entrepreneurs

    The Launch of Upside AI:

    It took nearly a year to build out the tech, including –

    1. cleaning up ~20 years of financial data
    2. Unbiased and robust back-testing, and
    3. Frameworks for qualitative issues like corporate governance

    In addition, the team conducted primary research by talking to CIOs and decision-makers at:

    1. The largest fund houses in the country
    2. Largest wealth managers in India
    3. 20-25 of the largest family offices in India
    4. 100+ retail investors

    It took nearly a year to build out the tech and back-test it; then another year to test it in the live market, before it took out of beta and started offering to third-party distributors and clients in July 2019.

    Challenges Faced by Upside AI:

    One of the major challenges that the team faced was that they were pitted against established players in an industry built on trust. Adding to that was the fact that Upside AI was perceived as an outsider since the team came from a background in venture capital and technology. Building a network of investors and distributors virtually from scratch remains one of its biggest challenges even today.

    Additionally, convincing people to put their trust and money into a newly introduced tech-based product was a mammoth task. However, the company’s aim since day one has been to make investors realize that one must diversify away from human-led investing. Over the due course, on the back of consistent performance and sustained alpha, clients, wealth managers, and distributors associated with Upside AI have come to appreciate that tech-based products should be an integral part of one’s asset allocation strategy.

    Which are the Top 5 Best Stock Investment platform for Beginners
    Stock Market investing are always considered to be complicated. So here are Top 5 Best Stock Investment platforms to get you started.
    StartupTalkyAlan Joseph

    How Upside AI works – Product and USP

    The current state of play in the Indian AMC industry is that –

    • Human managers are struggling with outperformance
    • Fees in the industry are shrinking where a human heavy cost base means low ROE, and
    • There is an ongoing system redesign on how asset allocation will change over the next decade.

    Already, technology/rules run 60% of the markets in the US. With ETFs overtaking active investing in the last few years, developed markets are moving away from the traditional human-driven investing models (which tend to be driven by irrational emotions/ biases).

    This will be the future for India and other developing countries – that users will increasingly look for an unbiased rules-based approach to equities and tech will drive much of asset management.

    At Upside AI, the team is creating a new class of investing that sits between active and passive – its goal is to deliver consistent alpha through eliminating bias/emotions from the process.

    Upside AI’s first few products focus on equity investing using proprietary machine learning algorithms to understand, recognize, and buy companies that are fundamentally good businesses.  

    1. The first step is parsing of P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow data of all companies listed on the NSE. This was a non-trivial exercise, as meticulous data clean-up and standardization.  
    2. The secret sauce is however the next step where the algorithm uses ML to shortlist companies that are not just fundamentally good businesses but also in-demand stocks.
    3. It does this exercise quarterly, to pick a portfolio of 10-25 stocks. It has also developed a framework for corporate governance checks to make sure the numbers fed into the algorithm are kosher.

    Milan Ganatra’s View on Fintech Industry [Exclusive Interview]
    Milan Ganatra is the Founder and CEO of 1Silver Bullet. StartupTalky interviewed Milan Ganatra to get his professional opinions and views on Fintech Industry.
    StartupTalkyJeenal Jain

    Upside AI – Founders and Team

    Nikhil Hooda, Kanika Agarrwal, and Atanuu Agarrwal are the founders of Upside AI.

    Upside AI Team
    Nikhil Hooda, Kanika Agarrwal, and Atanuu Agarrwal – Upside AI Founders

    How the Co-founders Met:

    Nikhil and Atanuu were batchmates from IIT Bombay and in fact, have been friends since even before that when they started preparing for IIT JEE together. Kanika and Atanuu crossed paths while working in the investment banking team at Credit Suisse.

    “All three of us love playing strategy board games and that is what led to a deep friendship and then eventually the partnership. So much so that Kanika and I are married and Nikhil was the witness on our marriage certificate. We are a very close-knit group and share not only the same set of interests but also common values which is ideal if you are starting a business together.” – Atanuu Agarrwal added.

    Atanuu Agarrwal | Co-founder, Upside AI

    Since Atanuu is the in-house Ben Graham disciple and pretty much spends most of his time on the investment and product side of the business. he has a B.Tech and M.Tech from IIT Bombay. He has experience in both public and private investing in the US and India. Atanuu spent the last 7 years prior to Upside AI working in New York with the CEO/Founder managing $1bn in AUM across PE, VC, and SPAC strategies.

    Kanika Agarrwal | Co-founder, Upside AI

    Kanika focuses most of her energies on sales and distribution. She is a Chartered Accountant (All India Rank 18), a CFA charter holder by qualification. She previously worked at Mayfield India for a brief time, Credit Suisse, and EY for nearly a decade before starting Upside AI.

    Nikhil Hooda | Co-founder, Upside AI

    Nikhil is the brains behind the technology at Upside AI. He has a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay (All India Rank 43) and a PhD in Computer Science. Every single line of code has been written by Nikhil and there has been no outsourcing or licensing when it comes to actually building the product.

    Upside AI – Business Model

    The business model in asset management is “solved”. Clients are charged a percentage of AUM periodically.

    Growth of Upside AI

    Currently, Upside AI has ~80 customers and about INR 85cr in AUM. Its goal is to cross 1000 customers and 1000 crores in AUM within the next 18-24 months (2022-23) while delivering consistent returns for its investors.

    As mentioned earlier, Upside AI ranks among the top-performing PMS’ in the country delivering 33% annualized returns since it came out of beta in Jul 2019. The company recently raised a seed round of $1.2 Million, led by a VC fund, Endiya Partners. It has already attracted marquee clients ranging from large family offices, VCs, CEOs of large MNCs in India and the US on the back of unique investment tech that the team has built in-house and extensively tested. The funding will help Upside AI build a robust pipeline of differentiated tech products and a network of large distributors, wealth managers, brokers, and IFAs.

    “I believe that a product-focused and client-centric approach can help us achieve our vision of being a world-class, tech-driven asset management company that will democratize access to sophisticated investment technology, built for Indian investors” Atanuu Agarrwal added.

    Upside AI – Funding and Investors

    Upside AI recently raised a seed round of $1.2 Million, led by a VC fund, Endiya Partners. Other investors in the round include – Vijay Kedia (a veteran stock market investor), Ajay Nanavati (Chairman of Quantum Advisors, previously Chairman of Syndicate Bank, MD of 3M), and Gopichand Katragadda (CEO of Myelin Foundry, ex-CTO of Tata Group).

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    June 21, 2021 Seed $1.2 Mn Endiya Partners, Vijay Kedia, Ajay Nanavati, Gopichand Katragadda

    The team @ Upside AI believes that the funding and guidance from Endiya and their esteemed angel investors will propel Upside AI towards the milestone to cross 1000 customers and 1000 crores in AUM within the next 18-24 months (2022-23) while delivering consistent returns for its investors.

    Indian Startups – Funding & Investors 2021 Data | Updated
    Exclusive Startup Funding Data of the Indian Startup Ecosystem 2021. The most updated list of Startup Funding news India.
    StartupTalkyJeenal Jain

    Upside AI – Competitors

    Current competitors for Upside AI include:

    1. Traditional Asset Management Companies (AMCs), and
    2. Boutique investment firms run by human fund managers.

    There are companies building digital distribution like Paytm, Smallcase, and Groww, etc. Upside AI would leverage these pipes to distribute its products. However, they might become competitors in the future if they backward integrate into asset management.

    Having said that, asset management is not a winner-take-all market and there is space for multiple large players to exist.

    “In addition, as far as we know, we are amongst only a handful of players leveraging tech for investment decision-making in India. Our proprietary tech and track record are sustainable moats, which should hold us in good stead vis-à-vis the competition” says Atanuu Agarrwal, Co-founder, Upside AI

    Upside AI – Recognition and Achievements

    Upside AI ranks among the top-performing PMS’ in the country delivering 33% annualized returns since it came out of beta in July 2019; this represents a ~14% alpha (outperformance) over the benchmark index (Nifty 500 TRI).

    In June 2021, PMS AIF World ranked Upside AI Multicap in the top 10 products of its peer group. Upside AI’s AUM has grown by 10X since 2020 to over INR 75cr with investments from several HNIs, and family offices.

    WealthDesk Startup Story – Enables Portfolio-based Investing
    WealthDesk is a B2B2C Investment Technology platform. enables portfolio-based investing on stocks and ETFs. Know the success story and growth of WealthDesk
    StartupTalkyJeenal Jain

    Upside AI – Future Plans

    • Its goal is to cross 1000 customers and 1000 crores in AUM within the next 18-24 months (2022-23) while delivering consistent returns for its investors
    • Apart from the two live products, Upside AI has another couple of products in development, which it plans to launch over the next 6-12 months(2021-2022)
    • Over the next couple of years, the company aims to add 1,000 HNIs, family offices, and institutional clients and grow to INR ~1,000cr in AUM.
    • The team is also working on building an end-to-end digital platform where we want tech to drive the entire chain from client onboarding to sophisticated investment tech to live tracking and reporting via a seamless UI/UX experience for clients
    • Over the next 5 years, Upside AI aims to create off-the-shelf, standardized products across asset classes that can be pre-packaged and sold to even retail investors

    Upside AI – FAQs

    What is Upside AI?

    Upside AI is a SEBI-registered PMS (Portfolio Management Service). It is an investment management startup that uses technology to drive investment decisions.

    Who are the founders of Upside AI?

    Nikhil Hooda, Kanika Agarrwal, and Atanuu Agarrwal started Upside AI in 2017.

    How does Upside AI make money?

    Clients are charged a percentage of AUM periodically.

    What is the USP of Upside AI?

    At Upside AI, the team is creating a new class of investing that sits between active and passive – its goal is to deliver consistent alpha through eliminating bias/emotions from the process. Upside AI’s first few products focus on equity investing using proprietary machine learning algorithms to understand, recognize, and buy companies that are fundamentally good businesses.

    Is Upside AI an Indian Company?

    Yes. Upside AI is an Indian Company headquartered in Mumbai.

    How much funding has Upside AI raised?

    Upside AI raised a seed round of $1.2 Million, led by a VC fund, Endiya Partners. Other investors in the round include – Vijay Kedia, Ajay Nanavati, and Gopichand Katragadda.

  • The Boom of FinTech Industries in India – A Statistical Data Analysis

    It might be surprising to know that India is the world’s largest growing industry of fintech companies. Fintech the short form for financial technologies and FinTech companies are those companies that sell technologies and services related to financial transactions.

    With the world shrinking to one’s fingertips and everything from education to business shifting to the online mode, there is absolutely no limit to the extent to which fintech companies are growing across the world and especially in India.

    Most of the firms today are investing in or are planning to invest in financial technologies heavily. It is expected that by 2023 the global fintech market will be valued at over $305 billion.

    Humble Beginnings and Powerful Growth
    Growth Unhindered
    Multifaceted Support From the Government
    The Future of Fintech Industry in India
    FAQ

    Humble Beginnings and Powerful Growth

    The growth of fintech industries in India has been really humble. It started to gain momentum in the country only after the government initiated liberalisation of the banking industry and the incorporation of technology.

    Slowly more funds were received by the banking sector for Financial innovation. The sector started to experience the ripple effects of the financial technology revolution in the US and UK in the 2000s.

    This enabled the Indian banking industry to slowly begin by offering services that are consumer-centric. In the early 21st century FinoPay Tech and EKO India were two startups that were curated in the Banking Correspondent Model (BCM). And that was just the beginning only to witness the emergence of revolutionary fintech startups like Paytm, FreeCharge, Mobikwik et cetera from 2005 onwards.

    Since then there have been no turning back for the industry with a plethora of companies mushrooming across different segments like lending, investments, personal finance management et cetera.

    How UPI Payments impacted FinTech Industry | UPI growth
    UPI Payments services have made payments quick, easy, and secure. Read the article to know why UPI payment is revolutionizing the Fintech Industry in India.
    StartupTalkyYash Gupta

    Growth Unhindered

    According to the reports by Boston consulting group (BCG) and FCCI India’s fintech companies are going to be valued thrice than what they are valued today within the next five years.

    It is estimated that Indian fintech companies will reach a valuation of more than $160 billion by 2025.

    The establishment of fintech companies and their growth have been phenomenal in the last five years than ever before. This dynamic industry has more than 2100 companies among which 67% of them were launched in the last five years alone. The biggest achievements of the industry do not stop there.

    Apart from the booming businesses of fintech industries, the covid-19 pandemic also facilitated more investments in the Industry as digital and contactless payments took on to the centre stage while most of the offline business transaction pathways were completely shut down.

    In the first seven months of 2020, fintech companies in India received total investments worth $1.47 billion which was 60% more than what it had been in 2019. Among the trends and new answers of the industry, online brokerage was gaining more popularity and thereby encouraged investors to buy more equities, mutual funds, ETFs et cetera.

    All these lead to increased activity in the industry as a whole which resulted in huge investments in the industry like never before. It saw the emergence of three new unicorns companies and five new soonicons (Companies that have a valuation of $500 million or more) just from the beginning of January 2020.

    There is a total of 21 unicorns in India and out of which one-third of the companies are fintech companies, which is not a surprise anymore. Among the unicorns Paytm is the highest valued one at $16 billion.

    Multifaceted Support From the Government

    Among the activities of the Indian finch industries, online payments have always been at the forefront. In 2018 digital payment crossed over 24 .13 billion in 2018. These transactions are valued at over $3.5 trillion.

    One of the major reason for the tremendous growth of Fintech companies in India is because of various government policies that allow and facilitate people to get on to the digital platform for storing and transacting money.

    The extensive use of Aadhaar has made verification easier and policies like PMJDY (Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana)  has pulled more people onto the digital platform than ever. The introduction of the Unified Payment Interface or UPI has also introduced a large amount of unbanked population in India into the digital financial services which have further boosted the growth of fintech companies.

    Apart from that demonetisation has opened vast opportunities for fintech companies for better service provisions and thereby making customers comfortable within the technologies like AI, blockchain, IOT et cetera.

    Reports say that the introduction of such industry 4.0 technologies into the industry gave a jump of nearly a hundred per cent from an earlier $1.8 billion valuation in 2018.

    The Future of Fintech Industry in India

    The fintech industry in India will continue to conquer greater heights as it has already started to partner with various banks. Using these collaborations and the nuances of consumer behaviour, Fintech companies are all set to further use technology to capitalise on better levels of trust among people.

    In 2021 and from then on it is expected that hybrid banking will become more mainstream. The performance of fintech industries in India in the first seven months itself has proved this to be true. In an environment of hybrid banking, more financial institutions that operate offline will take on to virtual banking as well.

    There are also various government initiatives that aim at establishing fintech hubs along with an allocation of Rs.15 billion to boost digital payments alone. All these will further strengthen and immunise the industry in the years to come. With the incorporation of newer technologies into the industry, it is expected that by 2025 there will be more than 30 billion connected devices ranging from thermostats to refrigerators to lightbulbs.

    The breakthrough advent of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is also expected to be a game-changer in the industry, especially regarding money transactions, consumer payments et cetera. However, it will be completely dependent on the stand of the Indian government.

    FAQ

    How many Fintech companies are there in India?

    At present there are more than 2,000 fintech companies in India.

    When did the FinTech sector rise in India?

    In 2015, the Indian fintech sector saw the emergence of numerous fintech startups, incubators, and investments from public and private investors.

    How big is the fintech market in India?

    The Indian Fintech market is currently valued at $31 billion and is expected to grow to $84 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 22%.

  • Fintech Industry in India | History, Growth, And Future

    Money related organizations, monetary methodology, and budgetary administrations have radically advanced and improved in the last couple of decades. With the development of the Fintech industry in India, the whole business has experienced a huge change in the manner in which the money related methods are completed and budgetary establishments are performed.

    The coordinated efforts between account and innovation has prompted an extreme change in banking, venture, exchanging, and digital money. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This development has prompted the ubiquity of the term “Fintech“, a short structure for the expression of Financial Technology. This post reveals insight into Fintech and why has it turned fierce in the modern world.

    Fintech is significantly more than only a reference to money related innovation. It is frequently alluded to as the inventive innovation used to improve customary money related strategies and create powerful answers for budgetary administrations, those which are at standard with the most recent mechanical patterns. Banking programming and portable financial applications are great instances of improvement in monetary innovation.

    Fintech Industry – History
    Fintech Industry – Growth in India
    Fintech Industry – Factors Behind Growth in India
    Fintech Industry – Future in India
    Fintech Industry – Leading Fintech Companies in India
    Fintech Industry – FAQs

    Fintech Industry – History

    Progressively, the huge fintech industry comprises of new companies and lofty monetary organizations endeavoring to improve the budgetary administrations given by money related foundations around the globe. The organizations have endeavored to utilize continually advancing innovation and create present-day techniques for taking care of money.

    A large number of us may not understand, yet innovation has constantly assumed a critical job in the money related division. In any case, the most recent 65 years have played a huge role in the development of the fintech industry and the creation of a few fintech arrangements.

    The 1950s saw the dispatch of credit cards and 10 years later, ATMs changed the manner in which cash was withdrawn from banks. The proliferation of the internet during the 1990s propelled the fintech business to a new level; electronic installment framework, web-based business models, web-based shopping, portable banking, and digitization of banks have brought about a significant revolution.

    What Is Fintech Industry | History of Fintech

    The world’s first ATM was propelled in 1967 by Barclays and the IPO in 1971, the principal online installment stage Paypal was established in 1998, the primary digital money Bitcoin was propelled in 2009, Google propelled Google Wallet in 2011 and, Fintech startups have been all over the place since then. Earth-shattering advancements of innovation are paving the way for fintech upheaval.

    Money related innovation is said to be a problematic power that  is relied upon to reshape the budgetary division, plans of action, and banking structures. New money related innovation simply keeps on progressing, has pulled in speculators from different nations, and has cleared the way for the development of markets and the fintech industry itself.

    Retailer banking and installments, protection, financier administrations, business banking, venture, and riches are affected the most by the development of fintech.

    List of Best Emerging Fintech Startups in India | Fintech Companies in India
    Fintech [/tag/fintech-startup/] [/tag/fintech/], which is short for financialtechnology, has become a crucial part of the world. In the old days, all thefinancial work was done through the paperwork only, as it was considered as thesafest mode. But with the development of technology, internet is …
    StartupTalkyAshwini

    Fintech Industry – Growth in India

    A NASSCOM report says that the fintech programming and administration advertising in India was around $8 billion in 2016; it was expected to develop 1.7 times by the end of 2020. The report includes that the exchange an incentive for the Indian fintech division was around $33 billion in 2016 and was scheduled to reach $73 billion in 2021 at a five-year compound yearly development rate (CAGR) of 22%.

    The Indian FinTech scene is divided as follows: 34% in installment handling, trailed by 32% in banking, and 12% in the exchanging, open and private markets. Visakhapatnam is being created as FinTech valley and the nearby administration of Andhra Pradesh opened Fintech Valley to advance the interests in this area.

    Fintech Industry Growth
    Fintech Industry Growth

    In 2018, more than 12,000 new businesses grew in the Fintech space over the world with a monstrous speculation of $19 billion. Fintech includes innovative organizations that are going up against each other and working in unison with existing money related foundations. These organizations likewise work together with colleges and research foundations, government affiliations, and industry bodies.

    India now has a system in place that gives new companies a chance to exponentially develop into enormous organizations. Directly from digging into a scope of unexplored portions to outside business sectors, new Fintech businesses are conveying advancement that was deemed hard to accomplish.

    Growth Of Fintech Services
    Growth Of Fintech Services

    The Indian Fintech programming business sector is expected to touch $2.4 billion by the end of 2020 from the current $1.2 billion in FY 2019.

    Over the last couple of years, the Indian economy, which is altogether money-driven, has exploited the Fintech opportunity. With a scope of choices that includes digital wallets, loaning, and protection, the assortment of administrations gave an enormous impact to change the manner of money-related activities.

    Money View Company Profile – Teaching India the Habit of Monitoring Finances on a Daily Basis!
    A new restaurant at the corner of the lane, online offers, sale season, and foodapplications making life easy by delivering at your footstep; all these are sotempting. With over a hundred reasons to spend, one might get concerned aboutthe monthly expenditure. It is definitely cumbersome to keep a…
    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    Fintech Industry – Factors Behind Growth in India

    A number of encouraging reasons are propelling the comprehensive growth of Fintech in India. Some of them are:

    Easy Payments

    Installments have seen a noteworthy transformation in the recent years, particularly due to the disturbance of internet business, versatile trade, and online installments. Budgetary consideration is substantially more than just installments and exchanges and installments are seen as the door for monetary incorporation. Shoppers and vendors will keep on grasping digitized installments while UPI will continue to have its firm ground for both P2P and P2M exchanges.

    Partnership Between FinTech’s And Corporates

    The Fintech Times says 2020 will be the time of brilliant coordinated efforts between Fintech trend-setters and corporates, where corporate organizations would ideally put resources into Fintech instead of acquiring arrangements. Likewise, banks will be collaborating with Fintech to sort out inconsistencies and offer benefits via administration, smooth client experience, and a progression in cutting-edge highlights to ease tasks.

    Refrens Success Story – A Revolutionary Payment Gateway for Freelancers
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on. As people look for alternatives beyond their day jobs, they are quick to stumbleupon freelancing…
    StartupTalkyLakshya Singh

    Simple Management Of Personal Wealth

    There’s a rising change being experienced by Investment Advisory organizations with the improvement of electronic riches counsels, also known as “Robo-guides.” And by “Robo,” we mean computerized board-stages as real robots.

    These Robo-guides can guide executives through calculations and help clients take money related decisions. The perfect outcome is the ability to yield specially designed, noteworthy counsel to financial specialists without the contribution of human feelings, and that too at a lower cost.

    Facility Of Cloud Banking

    Usage of distributed computing will lessen costs by an incredible degree on the grounds that no extra speculations are required for overseeing assets and equipment. Cloud adjusts to the changing requests and gives versatility to serve the transforming needs of clients. Cloud assets additionally scale upon necessity and permit simpler incorporations with innovations.

    How Fintech Industry Is Shaping Banking Sector

    Secure Digital Payments

    Security is of utmost importance since money related exchanges are exposed to dangers and assaults. An EY report says innovation like Blockchain will be extremely popular, crediting to its advantages like straightforwardness, changelessness, discernibility, and audibility. Blockchain will give a state of security with regards to the trading of cash and touchy data, enabling clients to draw off its straightforwardness and bring down operational expenses.

    NLP Based Chatbots

    There is now a rush of problematic innovation in organizations. It is encouraging to see clients continuously attempting to discover better approaches to consistently communicate with organizations.

    Fintech will be a sensation by utilizing NLP based chatbots and enhancing Conversational User Interface (CUI) to change portable banking. These chatbots will have the option to react to client issues and give practical arrangements accordingly.

    Convenient Personalization

    Fintech is improving client experience by giving customized plans suited to the client’s needs. The inevitable destiny of Fintech will see altered outlines that can imagine critical events in a client’s life. Actualizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data for personalization will bring about improved availability and capability; the results can then be used in the progression of present-day administration models.

    Fintech Industry – Future in India

    Fintech Growth Curve
    Fintech Growth Curve
    • Fintech administration firms are right now re-thinking the manner in which organizations and customers deal regularly.
    • In India, the scale has been less steep when compared to the international developments. The interest in India’s Fintech industry, which caught pace somewhere between 2013 and 2014, continues to grow.
    • Furthermore, India has a huge undiscovered market for budgetary administration through innovation in new businesses. 40% of the populace is not associated with banks anymore, and 87% of the installments are now being paid with real money.
    • With cell phone entrance expected to increment to 85-90% in 2020 from 65-75% at present and web infiltration consistently climbing, the development potential for Fintech in India can’t be exaggerated.
    • These holes in access to organizations and administrations offer a significant opportunity for Fintech arrangements to flourish and grow.

    Fintech Industry – Leading Fintech Companies in India

    There are more than 2000 Fintech companies in India. Some of the leading fintech companies in India are:

    Paytm

    Paytm - Fintech Company
    Paytm – Fintech Company

    A leading Fintech organization- Paytm is a platform for portable installments and money related administration. It gives an application based stage to pay installments, make travel appointments, inn and ticket booking, booking chamber, purchase of gold, gifts, and so on.

    Paytm offers banking administrations, credit cards, advances, speculation stage for protection, shared assets, etc. Paytm Mall is an additional offering by Paytm for internet shopping of utilities, garments, food supplies, adornments, hardware, toys, and a lot more. The application is available for both Android and IOS.

    Moneyfront Company Profile – Simplifying Investment In Mutual Funds
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on. Mutual Fund is an excellent investment tool as it allows all kinds of investorsaccess to profess…
    StartupTalkyShubham Kumar

    Policybazaar

    PolicyBazaar.com
    PolicyBazaar.com

    Leading marketplace of insurance products- Policybazaar is an online protection aggregator for items from different safety net providers (dependent on the value, quality, and key advantages). Right now, the site offers data to enable clients settle on the best choices alongside arrangement driven client care. The data highlights content in different structures, for example, the top five highlights of an item, hits, and change rates.

    BillDesk

    Billdesk

    BillDesk powers electronic installments and accumulations administrations for banks, organizations, and different establishments. It also oversees VISA installment administration. Billdesk empowers installment of service charges, Mastercard, and ISP charges for huge banks like Citibank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, and for organizations such as Bharti Telecom.

    Cleartax Company Profile – India’s #1 Tax & Investing platform
    Tax filing is a tedious task! Be it layman or a CA, it gets time-consuming andcumbersome to a great extent. Then came in a startup in 2011 that made thisprocess simpler for the people. Founded by Archit Gupta, Srivatsan Chari, andAnkit Solanki, ClearTax provides a range of services to clients inc…
    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    Pine Labs

    Pine labs

    One of the leading fintech- Pine Labs gives POS programming services for disconnected retailers and brands. The organization’s POS arrangements are a cloud-based system that coordinates with a nonexclusive POS terminal and enables retailers to acknowledge payments and Visas, e-wallets, QR code, and UPI based instalments.  

    The organization offers installment passage, API arrangements, portable installment arrangements, dependability gift voucher projects, and others. It additionally offers esteem-oriented arrangements like EMIs, limits, pay by focuses, e-Wallets, directed advancements, dynamic money change. Pine Labs’ versatile application is available for both Android and iOS.

    MobiKwik

    Mobikwik
    Mobikwik

    MobiKwik is an advanced wallet administration. It offers a halfway installment for ticket reservations and bookings. MobiKwik also gives momentary individual credits to its wallet clients.

    BankBazaar

    Bankbazaar
    Bankbazaar

    BankBazaar is an online budgetary dissemination and co-relation platform. BankBazaar empowers clients to purchase individual advance, home advance, vehicle advance, and other items, charge and Visas, disaster protection, medical coverage, accident protection, home protection, travel protection items, shared assets, fixed stores, and bank accounts. Clients need to give their essential subtleties to apply for an item on the web and can then track its status.

    How UPI impacted FinTech Industry?
    The term “FinTech [/tag/fintech/]” is the combination of finance and technologyand is refers to the provision of new solutions in the field of finance by ITventure companies. New business models are being created one after another,particularly in the area of B to C services using the Internet. Th…
    StartupTalkyYash Gupta

    Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS)

    BBPS
    BBPS

    Bharat Bill Payment System is a coordinated bill installment framework that offers interoperable and open bill installment administration to clients through enlisted operators and various installment modes. BBPS is an incorporated installment platform that makes a solitary, bank-free pitstop for all utility installments, and wallet administration for clients by taking care of their transactions through portable wallets.

    Unified Payments Interface (UPI)

    Unified Payment Interface
    Unified Payment Interface

    Unified Payments Interface is a framework that powers different ledgers into a versatile application, combining a few financial highlights, consistent reserve directing, and trader installments into one hood. It likewise takes into account the Peer-to-Peer system which can be planned and paid according to one’s comfort and convenience.

    Best Payment Gateways in India | Payment Gateways for Business
    A payment gateway is a merchant service that connects the users’ bank accountwith the platform where the users need to transfer their money. A bank mayprovide payment gateway to its customers, there is also specialised financialservice provider such as payment service provider which provides paym…
    StartupTalkyAshwini

    Fintech Industry – FAQs

    How many Fintech companies are there in India?

    There are over 2100 fintech companies in India.

    Is Fintech an industry?

    Fintech is term for Financial technology. All the companies that involves finance services using technology in their business come under Fintech Industry.

    What are leading fintech companies in India?

    • Paytm
    • Razorpay
    • Upstox
    • Cred
    • ETMoney
    • Instamojo
    • PolicyBazaar
    • MobiKwik
    • Pine Labs
    • UPI

    What is the valuation of fintech market in India?

    The valuation of Fintech market in India is currently around $31 Billion. It is expected to grow to $84 Bn by 2025.