The fund will be utilized to expand and enhance its AceN Tech platform, which serves as a bridge between rural small businesses (MSMEs) and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and banks, facilitating seamless connections.

Navadhan’s AceN Tech platform has established a robust network of 15 lenders, including Ugro, Vivriti, Northern Arc, Caspian, Unitus, and TruCap. Through this platform, Navadhan has successfully enrolled over 2 lakh customers and disbursed over Rs. 100 crore, empowering rural enterprises and driving economic growth.

Prior to this funding round, Navadhan had secured pre-Seed funding from Anicut, BOPA, Flowstate, and notable angel investors such as Prasanna Rao (Arya.ag) and Sarah Djari (Impact Fintech PE). With the recent funding, Navadhan has raised a cumulative total of $ 16 million in equity and debt lines, forming partnerships with NBFCs.

Navadhan’s platform offers a seamless digital onboarding experience, simplifying the customer journey and eliminating paperwork. Leveraging data science, the startup’s proprietary alternative underwriting model assesses the digital footprint and cash flow surrogates to address the lack of income proofs and documents that have hindered access to banking services in rural markets. This innovative approach tackles the challenges posed by predominantly cash-based economies and limited banking track records in rural areas.

Nitin Agrawal, Founder CEO of Navadhan, mentioned, ” We are a tech-led and revenue-first fintech. Our mission is to help create new-wealth for the rural small-entrepreneurs by solving their challenges. We are leveraging Tech using alternative-credit, predictive analytics backed by data sciences. With both Tech and People on-ground, we are making it work for the NBFCs and Banks to generate priority sector assets. The new fundraise will add tailwinds to our growth plans. As the Smart-phone and UPI penetration improves, we have an early mover advantage in the rural markets.”

Smart phone and internet penetration is projected to increase by 44% by 2030, with significant growth expected in rural areas. As the number of UPI transactions inches towards the $4 trillion mark, most of the future growth will come from rural markets. Navadhan is well-positioned to leverage the surge in mobile usage, data connectivity, and UPI transactions.

Speaking about the development, Aparajit Bhandarkar of Varanium NexGen mentioned, “India is growing and Rural markets are not far behind. While most of the fintech space is focussed at Tier-1,2,3, we saw Navadhan’s focus on the informal market as a potential high-growth area. Navadhan’s founders are seasoned professionals with credible experience in financial services. With the right TAM, Team, Tech, and Traction, they are building an early mover’s advantage in rural-markets. Tech-led approach gives non-linear scalability to their model. We see Navadhan as a potential market leader in making.”

Navadhan was co-founded by Nitin Agrawal, along with Vijay Haswani, Anirudh Ramakuru, and Amit Biswal. Nitin saw the recent surge of digitisation as an opportunity to build a tech-led finance platform. This comes from his 2 decades of experience with a stint at ICICI Bank leading Product-Tech for micro-banking and agri-channel finance. He was also involved in setting up a rural finance business for Fullerton India. In the recent past, he also served as CEO of Spandana Sphoorty, a listed NBFC-MFI.

Looking ahead, Navadhan plans to introduce new solutions and offerings, including credit limits and tech tools for digitizing unorganized value chains. Another key initiative in ESG space is to propagate Climate Smart Agri practices among its rural-customer base.

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The funds will be utilized for completing its platform as a service transformation, strengthening sales and marketing, and building a delivery excellence framework.

Founded by Dr Ram Ramdas and Rajesh Iyer, WonderLend Hubs offers LPaaS functions as an integrated ‘credit gateway’. This enables small and medium-sized lenders/loan originators to launch/scale a range of consumer and small business lending products, such as vehicle loans, personal loans, MSME loans, retailer finance, home loans, and buy now pay later (BNPL).

Its ICM PaaS drives bottom line and topline benefits for enterprises by functioning as an agile and dynamic automation solution that future-proofs their variable sales compensation strategy.

The architecture & capabilities offered by the firm has very wide custom-configuration capabilities at affordable price points.

Ankur Mittal, Co-Founder of IPV said: “Whilst its LPaaS and ICM PaaS solutions are large, exciting independent opportunities, the synergy in their target segments presents huge cross-sell potential that they are well-positioned to tap. Even on a boot-strapped basis, they have already demonstrated market validation of all three dimensions through what they have achieved thus far.”

“Their platform and delivery capabilities have already helped them to cater to clients in India and overseas, which clearly indicates their potential to grow at scale. It is commendable that they have already become a preferred provider for the insurance industry,” he added.

Ramdas, Chief Evangelist, said: “At Wonderlend Hubs, we are driven by the vision that true democratization of technology can happen only by putting the power of technology in the hands of the ‘business user’, free from the constraints of how it has been deployed historically.  We, therefore, embraced NoCode combined with a micro-service architecture as our way to move the dial in our chosen domains, much before it became part of mainstream conversation.”

The digital lending industry in India is projected to be $350 billion by 2023. The market for no-code platforms is starting to grow exponentially and is projected at $46 billion by 2025, targeting the broader enterprise software and IT services market of $1.5 trillion.

IPV recently announced the launch of a $50 million AIF fund, Physis Capital, to invest in Series A and B growth-stage startups. IPV has so far invested over INR 420+ crore in 128 deals.

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The financial details of the deal haven’t been disclosed.

This is the third acquisition announced by Pine Labs this year.

Setu builds a low-cost, modular API infrastructure so that businesses can go live with a fintech product or service in a matter of days. It works with account aggregator partners which are non-banking financial companies operating under the NBFC-AA license from the Reserve Bank of India.

It enables the consolidation of all financial data of users at a single location and allows users to access services quickly.

The fintech startup claims its APIs are being used across diverse industry verticals today, including startups, retail enterprises, banks, insurance, and lending companies. Setu’s existing and emerging use cases cut across multiple digital ecosystems, from Aadhaar eSign to BBPS bill payment, payment collection integration via WhatsApp, FASTag payment collection and more.

“Setu will make an incredible addition to the Pine Labs platform for a few reasons. Embedded financial services and open banking are going to be the way forward and the embedded finance market value is expected to exceed $138 bn by 2026 as APIs are intensifying the competitive fintech landscape,” said B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs. “Setu helps their customers, merchants, and brands build beautiful experiences, so consumers can engage with payments and financial services on their terms,” Rau added.

“Pine Labs’ network of merchants and issuers coupled with our API integration prowess will help achieve great results in personal finance management, monitoring loans to predict default rates, credit underwriting, and several other areas,” said Sahil Kini, co-founder and CEO at Setu.

Pine Labs is a merchant commerce omnichannel platform operating across India and Southeast Asia. Its tech-first approach to digital payments and focus on simplification at the front end aims to help many businesses embrace fintech products at scale.

Its payments cloud-based software Plural represents a one-stop payments destination across channels. Plural is designed to deliver secure and frictionless online payment experiences to the end-user, powered by an advanced tech stack that can augment an existing online business or build an all-new e-commerce payment setup from the ground up.

Incorporated in Singapore, the key investors of Pine Labs include Sequoia India, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal and Mastercard.

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Distinct Horizon an agritech company benefiting the farmers with a widely tested Urea Deep Placement technique to reduce chemical usage for productive farming. It develops advanced technologies to boost farmer’s marginal profit and increase their food production while protecting the environment. It aims at technological equipment of farmers by providing innovative machines. With a joint approach, Distinct Horizon and Ayekart will also support in farmer training as well as exploring new markets.

Simplifying the primary objective of this MOU, Mr. Debarshi Dutta, Co-founder & CEO, Ayekart said, “We at Ayekart believe in technological advancement of agricultural produce through digitizing farmer’s productivity with various advance machines and introducing partnership opportunities with distributors, wholesalers, stakeholders, etc. It is one of our key mottos to digitize the food and agri value chain of India. To benefit farmer communities, we are also trying to procure funding through CSR, NGO’s and government bodies to help boost their productivity and enhance their business.”

Government bodies like NABARD has created the Farm Sector Promotion Fund to incubate innovations and diffusion of technologies in the realm of agriculture and allied sectors to benefit vulnerable sectors of farmers. These funding from government, CSR, NGO’s will help benefiting the farmer. Various partnership opportunities and advancement in technology helps boosting productivity and income of the famer communities of India.

Adding to Mr. Dutta’s statement, Santosh Kumar, Co-Founder & Head Operations, Distinct Horizon, said, “Our technologies can revolutionize the agriculture sector both in terms of productivity and income increase while at the same time significantly reduce chemical input and costs of production towards massive climate change mitigation and a healthier soil. It is our pleasure to work alongside an entity like Ayekart which is committed to scale up such technologies.”

Advancement in machinery have expanded the scale, speed, and productivity of farm equipment, leading to more efficient cultivation of more land. These advanced devices and precision agriculture allow farmer’s businesses to be more profitable, efficient, safer, and more environmentally friendly. Ayekart will create an end-to-end solution by digitizing, handholding and providing funding to these farmer communities.

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MissCallPay, the fintech startup built over the recently launched UPI 123Pay by RBI Governor is poised to take UPI revolution to feature phones and voice for non tech-savvy smart-phone users has roped in fintech sales expert Atul Mehta as an advisor to strengthen its go to market strategy to quickly and effectively reach hinterlands of Bharat. 

This announcement comes 5 months after another high-profile advisor appointment of Telecom expert Mr. Raju Wadalkar (Ex- CTO and Global head of Innovation at Tech Mahindra and a tech guy behind Reliance group’s foray into telecom business).

Atul Mehta, IIM-A Alumnus & distinguished faculty of sales at IIM-A, IIM-B, MDI & FMS. He has a rich experience in Fintech growth strategies. In his sales leadership as SVP Head of Sales, Razorpay, has grown from 120 employees to 1700 in 4.5 years and has seen a valuation surge from USD 100 Million to 7.5 Billion. Atul has also worked with PayU, MobiKwik, PWC & KPMG. He brings on board more than 16 years of hands-on global experience in the areas of Fintech, Alliances, Enterprise Sales, Channel Sales, Analytics-driven strategy, and Business Intelligence.

As Mitesh L Thakker, Founder and CEO of MissCallPay said, we were on the lookout for a strong market strategist to get to the billion users on the UPI platform which has seen a glass ceiling at 200 million, the path to getting people at the middle and bottom of pyramid doing digital transactions is unchartered no digital media can reach or influence this non-tech savvy and digitally challenged feature phone and smart-phone users in a nation that speaks 121 languages and 270 mother tongues. The terrain into the hinterlands of India has been difficult to crack even for the highly funded and deep-pocketed unicorns like PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm.

Every step we take can bring an unwarranted surprise, and it’s a great asset to have Atul a favorite sales coach at IIM-A & B to mentor us on this treacherous path.

I first met Atul at IIM-A, while attending Bootcamp as part of my Incubation with CIIE’s  Bharat Inclusion Labs, it was love at first sight, his session was an eye-opener, I only aspired if I can get more from him and had never thought he would join my Advisory board.

Atul Mehta Commented , “I first met Mitesh at IIM-A Campus, the very idea of missed call based payments seemed promising to create great social impact but seemed financially unviable, after a couple of rounds of discussions with Mitesh and his board we could get to the fine print to make his payment system sustainable and popular among the underserved masses of Bharat.”

“I should say Mitesh has a great knack to go into the details, slicing the problems, and bringing out the solutions to solve the grand challenge of humanity, Financial Inclusion“, he added.

He said “I am really excited to be part of this journey that can truly transform the way bharat transacts and the solution that can elevate the underprivileged and our economy.”

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This 2022 Budget is a real booster budget, As it is focused on vulnerable sections to increase adoption of technology and digital payments in Bharat.
Firstly due to the announcement of 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs) in 75 districts.. a unique initiative and digitization of 1.5 Lakh post offices to provide core banking to the nook and corner of Bharat. Secondly, there is mention of a focus to promote the use of payment platforms that are “economical and user friendly.”

It seems government has heard my prayers to bring some reforms for feature phone and voice based payments as there are 97.3 Crore mobile subscribers who still not on UPI, while top UPI apps like GooglePay, PhonePe, PayTM, AmazonPay, Govt’s own BHIM as well as app of other 55 Banks have only been able to enroll 20 Crore users on UPI and most of these users are from the Lower Middle-Income segment non-tech savvy, from villages and elderly who struggle to make cost-free zero MDR money transfers, while we zip through addictive UPI based apps.. that ease of UPI has led to big increase in UPI Payments, but UPI user-base has kind of hit the glass ceiling at 20 Crore / 200 Million.

This renewed focus in Budget to the marginal sections, will get channeled in the right direction and rapidly increase the users on UPI and thus bolster the growth of our economy in the coming year, Real Aacche Din for Bharat seems to have arrived at the door.

The post Post Budget Reaction Quote from Fintech start-up MissCallPay appeared first on Startagist.

A senior Technology and Engineering Professional and IIT-B Alumnus with over 40+ years of experience, Raju brings an extensive knowledge of operations and scalability of the Tech and Telecom industry. He will guide MissCallPay with his rich experience to make a highly scalable, secure, and fault-tolerant application enabling the potential billion users to transact over Innovative MissCallPay running over revolutionary UPI rails.

Raju has been credited as the tech person who brought to life the telecom aspirations of the Ambani Family. He is among the first employees of Reliance Industries in the newly formed Telecom Business unit, Raju worked closely with Shri. Anil Ambani to launch the low-cost and high-quality GSM and CDMA-based Mobile Networks in the country. He was tasked with designing the first GSM networks in the entire North East, Himachal, and MP, which covered almost a third of the population and area of the country. After accomplishing this task, Raju shifted his focus to the Gujarat circle and created an innovative first approach of using CDMA mobile technology for Fixed Line local wireless access network. 

After his contribution to Reliance’s vision and Shri. Dhirubhai’s dream of making the cost of a phone call cheaper than that of a postcard, Raju co-founded 3GENESIS where he created and invented a Mobile Pre-paid system. It was later acquired by Apar/ NESS Technologies, which even today powers the Mobile Pre-paid systems of leading telecom companies across the world. Post that, Raju joined Tech Mahindra as Sr. VP and climbed up ranks to lead Tech Mahindra’s Telecom domain as CTO and Global Head of Innovation and continued his work with major telecom companies across the world enablingTechM’s strong team of 50,000+ engineers spread across geographies to launch/upgrade and maintain mission-critical telecom infrastructure.

After his stints at Tech Mahindra as a powerful influencer in the telecom industry, Raju now advises select path-breaking startups like Hygge Energy, FortyTwo42 Labs, and MissCallPay.

In the words of MiteshThakker, Founder – MissCallPay, “It is an honor to welcome Raju, who has a wide spectrum of experience in the tech and telecom industry. Particularly when we plan to take the NPCI’s UPI revolution to the billion, his expertise & experience will be instrumental in helping MissCallPay to take digital payments to every nook and corner of Bharat and thus bringing the benefits of the formal cashless economy to billion+ Indians, and fulfilling the dream of our PM, Shri Narendra Modi.

RajuWadalkar commented, “It is my pleasure to join MissCallPay as an advisor and work with the innovation that will take the UPI revolution to the interiors of Bharat, I feel that voice will be the new de facto standard for payments in India as it is more secured as well as convenient than the mobile app-based payments. It is great working with Mitesh’s team in their grand vision to bring financial inclusion to the under-served billions. I am sure MissCallPay will play a significant role in the growth of the Indian economy.” 

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FinX Labs today announced the opening of its startup accelerator and co-working space, the first of its kind within the IFSC (International Financial Services Centre) at Pragya, GIFT city (Gujarat International Finance-Tec City). FinX Labs is a joint venture by Jaxay Shah (MD, Savvy Infrastructure), DevX co-working & accelerator and Flexworx by Collated, that aims to provide a platform for budding entrepreneurs and give a boost to the startup ecosystem within the fintech space.

Inaugurated under the vision of Mr. Injeti Srinivas, Chairperson GIFT IFSCA, Mr. Tapan Ray, MD & Group CEO, GIFT City and Dipesh Shah, Head Development and International Relations, GIFT IFSCA; FinX Labs is proud to enter into MOU with NSE (National Stock Exchange) as a knowledge partner. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Jaxay Shah, MD Savvy Group, opined: “The GIFT IFSC was conceived precisely to act as a catalyst for ideas, ventures and endeavors that spur growth and harness synergies, propelling India’s standing in the international markets. FinX under the umbrella of IFSCA, will nurture fintech startups providing them with mentoring, funding, networking and access to global financial centres.”

Emphasizing the need for collaboration, Mr. Ravi Varanasi, President, NSE Group said: “We believe this partnership will nurture fintech innovation to make GIFT City one of the foremost international hubs for breakthrough fintech products. Keen developmental approach of IFSC Authority is the catalyst in bringing about this transformation.”

Voicing the views of the Startup ecosystem, Mr. Umesh Uttamchandani, Co-founder & CGO, DevX Co-working & Accelerator said: “It is the need of the hour for verticals to have segment-oriented accelerators to drive growth and provide every advantage possible. FinX labs is ideally positioned to mentor Fintech startups by handholding them with a structured framework and creating opportunities to scale. GIFT city is the obvious choice and ideal place to locate the Fintech accelerator with the ease of doing business and various financial incentives being offered like lower taxation numbers. We are sure that FinXlabs will help propel the Fintech startups forward.”

Citing his views, Mr. Aniruddh Jhaveri, Partner at Flexworx quoted: “When we talk about dynamism we generally refer to startups or entrepreneurs, but we often forget that regulators also take the leap of faith alongside. The team at IFSCA is unparalleled and access to the regulatory sandbox is a wonderful way to test ideas under a controlled environment. FinX labs opens up a plethora of opportunities for businesses looking to setup shop in GIFT IFSC; give growing business a tint of agility with flexible plug and play infrastructure.”

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Valyu.ai, a homegrown transformative fintech startup, announced the appointment of Rajat Khurana as its Chief Sales Officer. The appointment has been made to strengthen Valyu.ai’s position in the industry further, expanding its client base and growing the business to the next level. Rajat joins Valyu.ai as a core member of the leadership team and will be responsible for driving revenue generation KPIs that align with the company’s business strategies, such as launching new product categories and expanding into new markets. He will also provide a platform for strong commercial and sales leadership. 

Speaking on the announcement, Gaurav Kumar, Founder and CTO at Valyu.ai, said, “Rajat’s addition to the Valyu team brings multi-industry expertise under one roof. In addition, his leadership qualities, experience of more than 25 years, strong client relationships, and passion for driving top line and bottom line strategies make him the ideal candidate to propel Valyu.ai to new heights.”

Rajat brings an experience of more than 25 years to Valyu.ai. He is a business enabler with multi-industry experience and has handled various senior level assignments as Business Head / Business Development profiles. Being a B2B expert, he is proficient in driving relationships with key decision-makers across various segments. Prior to joining Valyu, Rajat has worked in diverse industries like Facility management , Man Guarding, Telecom & BFSI and has worked for brands like ISS Facility Services, Topsgrup , Bharti Airtel, Reliance , Max New York Life & Kotak Mahindra Group. Rajat will be heading the sales & business development function for Valyu.AI India with driving key client relationship management to enhance and grow the startup. 

Commenting on his appointment, Rajat Khurana said, “The internet ecosystem and evolving consumer needs have led to the emergence of fintech businesses as a strong value proposition. Keeping customer experience as our priority, I am looking forward to contributing my best to the company’s growth and success by bringing in sales excellence and business development strategies through innovative segments.” 

Valyu.ai is a homegrown FinTech startup founded by Gaurav Kumar in April 2020. A transformative fintech company, Valyu.ai, has set out to reduce employee financial stress by providing employers with a holistic approach that addresses financial wellbeing issues at its core. Valyu.ai is leveraging AIand Machine Learning to provide advanced salary solutions that can help companies alleviate their employees’ financial worries by providing them early access to their earnings & help companies create a financial care framework.

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Neokred Technologies Pvt Ltd, has recently completed its Seed Round for an undisclosed amount. The round was led by Virenxia Group followed by Nitin Agarwal (Founder of B21 Ltd and PayGlobal Ltd).  Capnetic Consulting Group was the sole financial advisor for the fund raise.

Neokred is an infrastructure Neo Bank that empowers Corporates, Fintechs and Start-ups to launch their own banking services with the help of customized tools.

According to Rohith Reji, Co-founder – Neokred Technologies, “With the immense growth Neokred has achieved in the last 6 months, we plan to ramp up our technology offerings and diversify into other products such as Savings, Rewards, Pay Later etc. This would provide fintechs and corporates with a ‘Plug-N-Play’ module to launch their own branded customized versions of the product. “

Neokred creates and adds a layer of technology to traditional bank infrastructure to redefine modern corporate solutions in the field of branded card management, account management, payouts, etc. The start-up has empowered companies across Credit, Expense Management, Student-Neo Banks, Retail Banking, Incentives, and digital accounts.

According to the founders, they plan to grow at least 10x in the next 12 months and become one of the biggest disruptors in BFSI Sector.

According to Satyam Khagen Bose, Chairman and CEO of Virenxia Group, “Virenxia is striving towards creating an impact in Sustainable Agriculture through its 360-degree holistic and systemic solutions, with a renewed approach towards the last mile farmer. The strategic partnership with Neokred will enable Virenxia to provide FinTech Solutions in the Rural Agri Sector”

Virenxia Group is a multi-national organisation headquartered in Singapore (as GI Projects SG) with its presence in India and the Middle East. They provide innovative, reliable and integrated sustainable solutions for businesses, governments and organisations.

“Neokred is doing some amazing work in the payment industry.  Both Rohith and Tarun, bring dedication as well as a fresh perspective to this space. I am very excited at the vision they have and how they can shape the nature of payments in India and even extend it to outside India.” – Nitin Agarwal

Plans Ahead

Neokred’s CEO Tarun Nazare indicated that they are planning to disrupt a couple of niches in India which have remained unchanged over the last few decades and will look at raising another round in 2021 to fuel their plans.

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