[Funding alert] Fintech startup Karbon Card raises $2M from Kunal Shah, Jitendra Gupta, others

Fintech startup KarbonCard, which is based out of Bengaluru and Shanghai, has raised a seed funding of $2 million led by angels in India and China. Some of the angels included Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO of CRED, Amrish Rau, Co-founder of Citrus Pay, and Jitendra Gupta, Co-founder of Jupiter.

The funding will primarily be used for product development, market expansion, and operations. The fintech startup was founded at the end of 2019, and issues Karbon Card, a corporate card to startups. 

Speaking of the fund raise Pei-fu Hsieh, Co-Founder and CEO of Karbon Card said in a press statement,

“Building a startup and pursuing your passion can be quite challenging.  Along the journey, many founders wish the banks could be more appreciative and supportive of the startup's ambitions.  Unfortunately, the banks’ position to protect their customers’ savings at all cost make their requirements and policies rigid and unfriendly to startups."

He added that Karbon Card is a startup founded with a vision to empower all Indian startups to achieve more through a Karbon Card.

"We will strive to improve your cashflow with credit, help you to spend wiser and manage better through our suite of products.  Let us worry about these issues while you focus on changing the world," Peter added.

The startup offers an interest-free corporate credit card that includes rewards specific to startups such as AWS credit, Uber, HubSpot, Freshworks discount, and MakeMyTrip, and also expense management software among others.

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Prior to starting Karbon Card, Pei worked with US-based VC fund Kleiner Perkins and Chinese fund 01VC, which focused on investments in India. He was earlier with McKinsey and also built from scratch and managed many ventures at Rocket Internet. 

Amit Jangir, Co-founder at Karbon Card stated, “The journey to building Karbon Card has been dotted by many ups and downs, as is the case with most startups. However, our greatest moment of pride was when we observed that the majority of our early customers have begun to refer and unequivocally praise the Karbon Card to other startups. This validation along with the continued support from hundreds of other startups such as Cred, Jumbotail, MyGate, among others have been incredibly encouraging to our team, assuring us that we are on the right track.”

Karbon doesn’t charge fees of any kind at present. The card and the rewards across platforms like Hubspot, Segment, and the like are completely free for startups to use. The revenue model primarily revolves around taking a cut of MDR when the card is swiped at any merchant. 

Jitendra Gupta, Founder of Jupiter, said, “I can see first-hand that within a short span of a few months, Karbon Card has been embraced by many Indian startups. We see massive potential for this sector in India. I myself am not just an investor but also an avid user of Karbon Card.”