[Funding Alert] FPL Technologies raises $4.5M in round led by Matrix Partners India and Sequoia India

Fintech startup FPL Technologies, founded by Anurag Sinha, Vibhav Hathi, and Rupesh Kumar, has raised funding of $4.5 million led by Matrix Partners India, Sequoia India and a number of angel investors.

The startup will soon be launching its first product - a mobile credit card, in partnership with a bank. The team aims to replace the current manual card process with an intuitive mobile app, giving the control to the consumers. 

Speaking about the card in a statement, Anurag, Co-founder and CEO, FPL Technologies, said,

“We believe existing credit products need to be more digital, flexible, transparent, ubiquitous and fair priced to end-consumers to build scale. From the process of researching for a product, to acquiring it, using it on a day to day basis and finally handling exceptions, we have set out to re-imagine every aspect from first principles using modern technology.” 

The founders, Anurag, Rupesh, and Vibhav, come from banking backgrounds with deep expertise in payments, credit and building and scaling digital businesses. The team currently has launched OneScore, an app that helps the consumer monitor their credit score in a simple and secure way. 

The team adds that the app needs no permissions and nor does it promote any offers or ads. The app helps the consumer improve their score through machine learning based score planning features. The team claims to have over 100,000 users in two months. 

Speaking of the funding Rajat Agarwal, Director, Matrix Partners India said in a press statement,

“In a market as crowded as the financial services space with a plethora of services and products to choose from, First Principles Labs (FPL) breaks through the clutter with a simplified and streamlined approach to rebuild the credit and payments platform with a unique model that leverages tech and over-weighs on data security.”

“What’s interesting is that while more than 60 percent of OneScore users are below 31 years of age and more than 55 percent of them have a prime credit score, less than 23 percent of them own a credit card. This shows that there is a huge market gap waiting to be explored,” said Anurag. 

FPL believes that the consumption of credit linked to overall consumption expenditure in India will grow exponentially in the next decade. Shailesh Lakhani, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India LLC, said,

“When they presented a plan to modernise credit cards in India it immediately resonated with the Sequoia India team. It’s a delight to partner with them as they work on developing more flexible, affordable and easier to use financial products for Indian consumers.” 

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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