[Funding alert] Fintech startup Rupeek raises additional $30M from GGV Capital, Binny Bansal, others

Online gold loan platform Rupeek on Tuesday said that it has raised an additional $30 million in equity funding. Earlier in August, the startup had announced raising another $30 million, taking the total fundraise to $60 million over two rounds.

Silicon Valley-based global venture capital firm, GGV Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Binny Bansal, KB Investments Co (KBIC), Tanglin Venture Partners, Sequoia India, and Accel Partners participated in these rounds.

ALSO READ

[Funding alert] Online gold loan platform Rupeek raises $30M led by Bertelsmann India Investments

According to the startup, it will invest the fresh funds into its technology platform, use it for customer acquisition, and improving customer access to credit in the country. 

Speaking on the funding, Sumit Maniyar, Chief Executive Officer, Rupeek Fintech said,

“We have seen a massive transformation in the fintech sector and potential opportunities to partner with banks. We plan to scale existing and newer channels for gold monetisation. We will use the fresh funds to invest in technology, customer acquisition, and work towards improving the accessibility of credit in the country”.

Started in 2015 as an asset-backed lending marketplace, Rupeek leverages technology to operate with a branchless model and passes the benefit of lower operational costs to the end customer. 

It provides ‘doorstep gold loans’ using technology, and is currently disbursing gold loans at an annual run rate of more than $200 million.

Hans Tung, Managing Partner at GGV Capital will be joining Rupeek as a board of director. Commenting on GGV’s investment, Hans added,

“For India’s middle-class households, gold has long been a favourite way to save and invest. Rather than letting it sit idle, Rupeek has turned a family’s dormant asset into an easy way to get a loan at affordable rates to grow their small business or pay for emergency needs. We are impressed by the deep partnerships that Sumit and the team forged with banks in India, and hope that those partnerships could be leveraged to launch more innovative and localised financial products for the middle-class of India.

With a marketplace of agents, Rupeek enables big, Indian banks to offer competitive gold loan products at the privacy of customer’s homes by sending agents to people’s homes and depositing the gold at the nearest branch of the partner bank that offered the loan.

Commenting on the investment, Binny Bansal, Co-Founder, Flipkart said,

"I am really excited about how Rupeek is opening up access to formal credit for a large base of users. Its strong customer proposition and approach of partnering with banks is truly a game-changer for the unorganised gold loans space in India."

At present, Rupeek has 1,300 employees, and is present in ten cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi, Jaipur, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Coimbatore, and Pune.

“Rupeek has identified a key problem of availability and accessibility to credit to the self-employed sector in a market like India. Rupeek has managed to bridge this gap in the lending market at a lower cost with its tech capabilities. The amount of stationary gold in India opens up the opportunity for monetisation and distribution. We are very excited to continue partnering with them,” Anand Daniel, Partner, Accel Partners added.

While, GV Ravishankar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India LLP, said,

“Since its early days, we have seen Rupeek evolve into a strongly differentiated fintech company, partnering with banks to bring superior solutions for its borrowers. It has demonstrated how young companies can successfully leverage the capital advantage of banks to open up market opportunities that are currently underserved – creating a winning proposition for its banking partners to gain share in the gold loan market.”

According to Rupeek, it plans to increase its customer base from one lakh to one million, and provide accessibility of credit to a billion Indians by 2022 across 100 cities through its asset-based offerings.

(Edited by Suman Singh)