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|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Breaking new grounds in the formal finance sector through innovative and dynamic use of technology, Rubique Technologies Private Limited, India’s largest online financial matchmaking platform has raised an undisclosed amount funding led by Japan’s Recruit Group and Russian venture capital management company, Emery Capital. The funding round saw participation from Blacksoil Group & existing investor Kalaari Capital.

The funds from this round will enable Rubique to further strengthen its technological and analytics capabilities. The company also aims to expand its credit product offerings to deepen its reach to small enterprises and reach out to underserved micro enterprises.

Established in the year 2014, Rubique has demonstrated how frugal innovation, propelled by disruptive technologies in the traditional lending space, can simplify complex financial procedures to fulfill every financial aspiration in the simplest, shortest and speediest way possible. Since its inception the company has already facilitated loan disbursement worth approximately Rs. 2,670 crores and over 82,000 credit card setups through its platform.

The involvement of Recruit Group and Emery Capital, both having an international expertise in facilitating adoption of newer technologies across sectors and geographies, as well as its existing investors, underlines the trust that Rubique has generated in the global market.

Speaking on the announcement, Manav Jeet, MD & CEO, Rubique said

The success of the latest funding round is a strong indication of the trust our investors have in our vision, our technology-thinking of financial services as well as in our strong focus on robust unit economics model. We have managed to successfully stand out in the fintech space as an innovator par excellence and one of the genuine success stories of the domain through our unique asset light business model.

With the domain expertise our investors bring on-board, we look forward to leveraging their insights as we build a leading platform for digital lending in India. We would also like to thank our existing investors for continuing to support us in our growth journey.

Apart from this round we are also in the final stages of closing another tranche’ of funding, to be led by couple of marquee investors. We are excited about our next phase of growth and will continue to develop superior technology products for the ecosystem players thereby aiming to bring a symbiotic relationship between banks and technology, bridge India’s credit gap.

Rubique has recently closed 200K customers and have generated revenue of around $7.2 Mn [INR 47 Cr], clocking a revenue of around 3.5 Crores Month on Month. With a consistent growth, Rubique has been unit economics positive at the transactional level and will be aiming to break-even in 2019 & going for Rs. 100 Crores revenue by 2021.

Speaking on the fund raise, Ivan Savelyev from Emery Capital said

Rubique’s unique business model and technology thinking has an impressive ability to hit the ground running to build a financially strong nation with easy access to credit to all sectors of the society – Businesses and Millennials.

We believe that the deployment of technology to develop scalable and accessible financial services platforms, incorporating big data analytics and machine learning, will be critical to any lending business serving the under-banked and underserved customers in India. We are committed to supporting Rubique on its journey to become a leading fintech player in India and also help and share our experience with similar models in other continents & explore synergies to work with them.

With the world constantly innovating, the advanced technologies such as Blockchain, Big Data and AI used by Rubique analyses multiple data points to assess the creditworthiness of the customers and provide them the offers they are eligible for, thereby removing the manual efforts in the loan processing system. The company has recently built a data science team which leverages its rich customer data and bank credit policies to build a proprietary AI based Matchmaking and ranking algorithm that provides a customized list to each consumer based on his/her needs and profile. This offers manifold advantages in terms of higher approval rates, better customer satisfaction and improved sourcing to its financial partners.

Eyeing the future growth of the company, Rubique envisions becoming the largest online financial matchmaking platform in India and aiming for entire ecosystem growth including customers, financial institutions & influencers. With focus on maintaining its model asset-light, Rubique is planning to invest in Data science & leverage insights generated to build stronger business propositions.

About the Recruit Group

Founded in 1960, the Recruit Group creates and provides platforms that connect companies and consumers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, the Group offers a wide range of services in a variety of areas including human resources, education, housing and real estate, bridal, travel, automobiles, dining and beauty. The Group has more than 45,000 employees and operates in more than 60 countries. For more information, please visit Recruit Group

About Rubique

Rubique was formed in November 2014, with a vision to fulfill every financial aspiration in the customer’s life cycle in the simplest, shortest and the speediest way through a wide range of loan, credit card and insurance products. Built on a proprietary AI based recommendation engine, Rubique’s marketplace platform has been integrated with financial institutions’ systems for real-time processing and providing online approvals to the customers. The advanced technology solution not only reduces the processing time significantly, but the data analytics done on multiple data points helps bring predictability and assess creditworthiness offering best deals to the customers.

Named as ‘The Most Promising Brand’ by The Economic Times and selected among the top 20 lending fintech players in India by the Financial Express’ Best Bank Awards Jury recently, Rubique has also garnered a lot of international recognition and accolades.

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Capital Float [Zen Lefin Pvt Ltd], India’s leading digital lender has raised debt of €6 million [INR 48 crores] from the Netherlands-based asset management company, Triodos Investment Management. The latter is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Triodos Bank, one of the world’s leading sustainable banks, and manages €3.3 billion in AUM.  This takes Capital Float’s total debt raise to $130 million [INR 840 crores]. The company has raised $107 million [INR 695 crores] in equity thus far.

Image Source – Capital Float

Triodos IM is the first international investment management company to invest in debt at Capital Float through its investment funds Triodos Fair Share Fund and Triodos Microfinance Fund. Through this collaboration, Triodos IM intends to increase its strategic focus on SME lending in India. Capital Float will leverage the funds from the debt raise for the purpose of onward lending, as the company continues adding to its existing AUM of over INR 1200 crores.

Gaurav Hinduja and Sashank Rishyasringa, Co-founders, Capital Float, said

We are delighted to have Triodos IM join our prominent list of investors. We have previously raised debt from some of the largest banks and NBFCs in India, such as Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Reliance Capital and Northern Arc Capital [formerly IFMR Capital].

This collaboration with Triodos IM indicates Capital Float’s ever-growing reputation in the international financial circles. Investments like these will help put digital lending in India in the international spotlight. With this fresh injection of funds, we will strengthen our focus on expanding our MSME borrower segments.

Aditya Mohan, Senior Investment Officer said

Triodos IM has been working with companies that are the frontiers of financial services in emerging economies for over two decades, and the role of technology in delivering financial services in these markets has increased exponentially in recent years.

We are pleased to partner with Capital Float and are enthused by their approach of using technology as an enabler for collaboration in financial services. We look forward to contributing to a digital eco-system which can make credit accessible and affordable to MSMEs.

Northern Arc Capital performed a crucial role in facilitating the debt raise between Capital Float and Triodos IM.

Dr. Kshama Fernandes – MD & CEO, Northern Arc Capital, said

Northern Arc partners with clients across various sectors and phases of their life-cycle. Basis our diligence we take balance sheet exposures and enable these entities to access reputed global and domestic investors who value Northern Arc’s skin-in-the-game.We are excited to have played a critical role in an important transaction.

The investment by Triodos IM in Capital Float is a great demonstration of our commitment to back clients in every way possible along their growth path.

About Capital Float

Capital Float is the pioneer of digital lending in India. The company leverages technology and big data analytics to deliver innovative credit products to businesses and individuals across the country. Through its proprietary digital loan underwriting and origination platform, it has been able to deliver financing solutions to large sections of the economy traditionally underserved by large financial institutions. It has also developed partnerships to finance SMEs across various ecosystems such as e-commerce, manufacturing supply chains, retail, travel and hospitality, and digital remittances.

Founded in 2013, Capital Float is the trade name for Zen Lefin Private Limited, a Non-Banking Finance Company [NBFC] registered with the Reserve Bank of India. For more information, please visit Capital Float

|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Capital Float [Zen Lefin Pvt Ltd], India’s largest digital lender has raised $22 Million [INR 144 crores] in equity funding from Amazon. This latest fund raise takes Capital Float’s total equity funding to nearly $110 million from Amazon and other existing investors including Ribbit Capital, SAIF Partners, Sequoia India, Creation Investments, and Aspada. In addition, the company has also raised debt amounting to $130 million till-date [INR 840 crores] from leading banks and NBFCs. Capital Float has enabled large numbers of SMEs with customized credit solutions and is actively expanding into new customer segments. The company’s unique model of lending from own balance sheet as well as a co-lending model of loans for other lenders [banks and NBFCs] gives it access to large pools of capital to serve a vast customer base.

Image Source – Capital Float

Gaurav Hinduja and Sashank Rishyasringa, Co-founders, Capital Float, said

We are tremendously excited to bring Amazon on board as an investor at this key juncture in Capital Float’s journey. This partnership has enormous potential. In the past 6 months alone, we’ve added several new products and crossed INR 1,200 crores [$185 million] in overall loan portfolio outstanding. We have also achieved tremendous growth on the customer acquisition front, adding 50,000 new customers across the country. With this investment from Amazon, we enter FY19 with relentless focus to add 300,000 customers and originate over INR 5,000 crores [$800 million] in loans this year.

The funds will be used to bolster Capital Float’s proprietary end-to-end digital loan origination system and to design innovative credit solutions for customers.

Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Manager, Amazon India, said

We are excited to work with Capital Float and invest alongside other investors. We are highly impressed with what Gaurav and Sashank have built and we back missionary entrepreneurs and management teams. Credit in India is highly under-penetrated and Capital Float is bringing the right kind of credit solutions to the underserved and informally served segments of SMEs to help realize their full potential. The company is well positioned for the digital age with its strong technology and data-driven approach to lending.

About Capital Float

Capital Float is the pioneer of digital lending in India. The company leverages technology and big data analytics to deliver innovative credit products to businesses and individuals across the country. Through its proprietary digital loan underwriting and origination platform, it has been able to deliver financing solutions to large sections of the economy traditionally underserved by large financial institutions. It has also developed partnerships to finance SMEs across various ecosystems such as e-commerce, manufacturing supply chains, retail, travel and hospitality, and digital remittances.

Founded in 2013, Capital Float is the trade name for Zen Lefin Private Limited, a Non-Banking Finance Company [NBFC] registered with the Reserve Bank of India. For more information, please visit Capital Float

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Ebix, Inc., a leading international supplier of On-Demand software and e-commerce services to the insurance, financial, e-governance and healthcare industries, has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in India based Smartclass Educational Services Private Limited [Smartclass], a leading e-learning Company engaged in the business of education services, development of education products, and implementation of education solutions for K-12 Schools.

Image Source – Ebix

Ebix expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive to its earnings and forecasts up to $0.20 in increased Diluted EPS, once the acquisition is fully integrated over the next 6 months. Under the terms of the agreement, Ebix will pay up to $8 million in cash for its stake in SmartClass.

Smartclass is one of India’s leading e-learning companies catering to the fast-growing K-12 education sector in India. With staff strength of approximately 500 employees out of a total of 1000 staff, dedicated to research & development and customer engagement, the Company caters to accredited school education through rich media like 2-D, 3-D, Virtual reality animation etc. Smartclass’s 500-strong sales and marketing staff across the country has helped create a strong growth trajectory, in terms of top line and reach for the Company.

Smartclass today has a customer base encompassing thousands of classrooms, paying for Smartclass e-learning products and services in an on-demand subscription basis. Smartclass will be tightly integrated into Ebix’s Education and e-learning initiatives in India and is seen as one of the many steps, that Ebix intends to take with an intent to invest up to $100 million in the sector.

Robin Raina, Ebix Chairman, President & CEO  said

The e-learning business model is typically asset lite and caters well to strong recurring operating margins, once the customer aggregation crosses the threshold levels. We have been eyeing India’s fast-growing e-learning sector for many years now, fueled by education being one of the highest spending areas traditionally for an Indian median household.

Towards that extent, we have earmarked a $100 million amount for investment in India’s e-learning sector and the acquisition of Smartclass is a logical first step for Ebix to establish its presence in the country’s e-learning markets.

A few years back, we started investing in the healthcare e-learning sector through our Indian subsidiary acquiring Birmingham based Oakstone LLC. Any business-like e-learning where you can create an asset and sell it thousands of times, has strong possibilities of generating strong operating margins and cash flows.

When you consider the strong focus that the Indian Government has put on investing in the e-learning sector in the recent budget, the present nascent state of the country’s education infrastructure, and the fast growth that high tech companies like Smartclass have experienced in India, the decision to take up a strong position in the country’s e-learning markets became an easy one for Ebix.

Divya Lal, Smartclass Chief Executive Officer said

We are very excited by the possibilities of growth, geographical reach and financial strength that this investment from Ebix brings to Smartclass. We look forward to becoming a part of the Ebix family and replicating Ebix’s international success over the last two decades, to build upon our existing strengths and take a leadership place in India’s e-learning industry.

About Ebix, Inc.

With 50+ offices across 5 continents, Ebix, Inc., endeavors to provide On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance, financial, e-learning and healthcare industries. In the Insurance sector, the Company’s main focus is to develop and deploy a wide variety of insurance and reinsurance exchanges on an on-demand basis, while also, providing Software-as-a-Service enterprise solutions in the area of CRM, front-end & back-end systems, outsourced administrative and risk compliance, across the world. For more information, please visit Ebix and EbixCash.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced a two-year $1.58 million partnership between New South Wales [NSW] and India to enhance the State’s startup, technology and advanced manufacturing sectors. Ms Berejiklian made the announcement in Mumbai at accelerator Zone Startups and said it will allow NSW entrepreneurs and technology businesses access to new markets, talent and knowledge.

Image Source – Partnership

The funds will be used to send NSW young entrepreneurs and startups to India to learn from the country’s best and brightest, to support commercial connections between startups in NSW and India and on fostering collaboration on advanced technology projects.

Ms Berejiklian said

NSW is Australia’s startup and technology capital and this partnership will ensure our industries grow alongside one of the world’s most dynamic technology markets.

Our state is home to 44 per cent of the nations startup founders and 40 per cent of the Information and Communications Technologies [ICT] industry. This important partnership will allow us to learn from India’s best and brightest so that we can create the smart jobs of the future.

This partnership will provide NSW businesses with incredible access to some of the best entrepreneurs and technology experts in the world and I look forward to seeing the results over the next two years.

The Premier is in India on a trade mission visiting Mumbai and New Delhi between April 16 and 19.

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

icanstay, a portal known for making luxury hotel stay available for business travelers, has raised fresh round of funding of Rs 1.30 Cr from an angel investor Manoj Prasad, executive chairman at Singapore-based venture capital & management advisory firm MP Morgan Capital Partners Pte. Ltd.

Image Source – icanstay

This is addition to Rs 2.24 Cr raised few months earlier from the same investor who has picked up 6.54% stake in the company. The overall funds acquired are USD Five Hundred Fifty Thousand. This investment values FTTL at more than Rs 36 Cr, in a short span of just nine months since its commercial launch.

Commenting on his investment, Manoj Prasad, the angel investor said

We see tremendous growth opportunities in the travel and hospitality space in India. FTTL is an exciting start-up with a unique model that brings value to all its stakeholders – customers as well as hotels and is well positioned for growth. We are excited to partner with such an exceptional management team and continue to build and grow this business over the long term.

icanstay is launched to fulfill aspiration of millions of Indians, who have not yet experienced stay in a Luxury Hotel. As per market study, less then 2% Indians have experienced stay in a luxury hotel. There is a huge aspirational class of customers, as per an estimate 10% of the total population, who wish and desire to stay in a luxury hotel. And as on date there are 125000 luxury rooms in India, which will grow to 165000 by 2020. With industry average of 62% occupancy, 47500 rooms go vacant daily. icanstay is a market place/bridge for a large base of aspirational consumers and luxury hotels with vacant rooms.

icanstay offers 4 & 5 Star rooms all over India at an amazing and fixed price of Rs. 2999 [include GST] all around the year. No seasonal surges or city-based price. The portal wishes to upgrade budget hotel customer to Luxury hotel and make this his/her way of life. Users can purchase an open voucher valid for 11 months, which can be utilized in more than 50 cities.

Puneet Gupta, COO and Co-Founder, FTTL said

The investment would be utilized to beef up the technology and expand hotel network. We are strongly placed to help hotels fill their vacant rooms and increase their yield per room. Further we are continuously strengthening our product offering and user experience. We are targeting a turnover of Rs. 700 Crores by 2020.

The company’s USP has always been the price and flexibility that it offers to its customers, making luxury hotel stay affordable for as many people as possible.

About First Time Travellers Ltd

First Time Travellers Ltd is a Delhi-based online start-up in the travel e-commerce segment. It’s vision is to provide upgraded hotel experiences to aspirational consumers and frequent travelers in the country. For more information, please visit icanstay

|In: Conquest|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Founded in 2004, Conquest soon became India’s biggest student-run startup conclave receiving over 1000 startup applications consistently since previous three editions. Fourteen years have passed by, with a couple of revamped models and success stories laden throughout, Conquest has now evolved into a six-week summer program for India’s top ten startups which receive free space to live and work in Bengaluru along with intensive mentoring, investment opportunities and media coverage.

In the past, Conquest has had success stories like SocialCops, which is acclaimed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has been recognized as the Most Impactful Startup of 2017 by the YourStory team. Swagene and Gamezop which were the top two startups in Conquest 2015 went on to create genetically customized medicine and social gaming platforms respectively. Thinkerbell Labs, winner of Conquest 2016 aims to bring Braille within the reach of all visually-impaired people.

With a network of top investors like Sanjay Nath, Dev Khare, Barath Shankar from investment firms like Blume Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Accel Partners, Matrix Partners, and Indian Angel Network, Conquest serves as a networking paradise. Infotech Hub and Balsamiq as associate sponsors, Conquest is on a mission to empower founders, to catalyse innovation and to assist creation.

Rahul Chhabra, CEO at Conquest, BITS Pilani, says

The only way to push the human race forward is to have enterprising small groups of people reject the status quo and build the future. In those magical moments of giving birth to innovation, we stand by the crazy ones who dare to change the world, the ones who love building  and creating just for the fun of it.

What all is Conquest upto ?

From one of India’s grandest startup events, Conquest is now under transition to become a leader in India’s startup ecosystem with multiple initiatives for all stakeholders in the industry.

  • Summer Mentorship Program – With a goal to help the best founders build great businesses and raise money, Conquest provides a six-week long summer mentorship program at Bengaluru to their Top 10 Startups. This will comprise of free co-living space at The Hub – a coliving space where people come together to live, work and express themselves, along with free co-working facilities. A separate co-living space will also be provided at BHIVE workspace.
  • Grand Finale – The Summer Mentorship Program will be followed by a Grand Finale where the Top 10 Startups get to pitch themselves before India’s top investors and media houses to raise funds and gain media attention.
  • Conquest Mentoring Sessions – From among all the startups that register for Conquest, the Top 50 are called for a day-long mentoring session in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai with industry stalwarts in tech, customer acquisition, fundraising and so on.
  • Conquest Community – The Conquest Community is a curated community of past startups, investors, mentors and experts from the Conquest network. It sparks discussions and provides an opportunity for members to connect with and gain insights from each other.
  • Conquest Hiring Platform – This gives an opportunity to Conquest Campus Ambassadors, college E-Cell partners and developers to get a chance to work with one of the previous Conquest Finalists as well as the current startups looking to hire.
  • Conquest Academy – Building a repository of great advice to first time founders which have everything from how to find the right co-founders to how to achieve a product market fit.
  • Conquest Meetups – Regularly held meetups and hackathons with mentors, founders and developers which helps get the most talented people of the country under one roof.

Why should a startup register for Conquest?

If you are an early stage startup founder who really cares about the company you are building, then Conquest has built a distraction-free, high growth environment for you so that you can single mindedly focus on building your company.

Conquest provides intensive mentoring from founders who have built great companies themselves who are the best source of experiential knowledge on nascent stage startup problems. Another important element of the program is a collaboration focused environment which requires all Top 10 Startups to stay and work together in order to solve each other’s problems and leverage complementary skill sets. Finally, Conquest helps the startups overcome one of the most common roadblocks – fundraising.

Conquest provides investors from top VC firms, Conquest alumni and experienced founders to help craft your pitch, build your deck, maneuver deals and secure funding.

Conquest has opened registrations, join the journey here. To know more about Conquest, check out their blogs – Conquest: Building India’s First Student-Run Startup Launchpad, Why register your startup for Conquest?.

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Mojro, a smart urban logistics platform has raised $650K investment led by 1Crowd and its investor community. The investment will be used for technology development, team expansion for marketing and building partnerships with fleet owners.

Image Source – Mojro

As Urban Logistics is a growing and sizable problem, Mojro’s offers a machine learning driven intra-city logistic planning and optimization platform. The platform can be used by large and medium businesses to optimize their logistic needs in terms of fleet utilization, space utilization and cost optimization. Mojro has also struck partnerships with fleet owners providing them modern day techniques to improve service quality and providing businesses the opportunity to plan and execute for their logistic needs through a single platform.

Kishan Aswath, CEO, Mojro, said

Mojro envisions to be the world’s largest technology enabled Logistics Platform that seamlessly automates end to end logistics needs of business entities and provides them an efficient & effective means to store, package and move goods.

1Crowd is a unique angel investment platform focused on early stage ventures. It has more than 600 investors, 70 mentors and has made over 13 investments since March 2016. With the funds, the company will be able to leverage 1Crowd’s ecosystem of mentors, industry connects and investor community to benefit from strategic to operational support.

Anup Kuruvilla, Co-Founder of 1Crowd, said

Along with a well-respected, experienced and dedicated team, Mojro addresses key modern day challenge of urban logistics. While there are several players in the logistics market, Mojro has the unique value proposition of being the only player in the market that has Optimization and On the Ground Execution as two cornerstones of its platform. The company has positioned itself as a technology-assisted platform solution company solving several issues of fleet capacity, route planning and Fleet Supply & Operations, helping fleet owners maximize the benefits from their assets.

The startup was founded in 2016 by Kishan Aswath, Amit Kulkarni, Ranganath Seetharamu and Swaminath Jeyachandran all having significant years of professional experience. Veteran banker M.A. Ravi Kumar and angel investor Sounder Kannan would join the Board of the company.

Sounder Kannan, Director, Naga Limited said

With a clear focus on optimizing the fragmented intra-city supply chain, Mojro aims to be providing world class solutions with aright blend of Physical & Digital services at scale.

About Mojro

Mojro aims to bring efficient planning, optimization of resources complemented by transparent execution to intra-city logistics. The platform uses machine learning, big data analytics, heuristics, and cognitive science for optimization of route, vehicle, space utilization and cost taking into account various constraints for both shipper and receiver including time, SLAs, type of goods & load distribution. For more information, please visit Mojro

About 1Crowd

1Crowd is a unique angel investment platform focused on investing in early stage ventures. 1Crowd and its investor community has made 15 investments in the early stage startup segment. 1Crowd has close to 600 investors on board and over 70 eminent people as mentors. For more information, please visit 1Crowd