Gig economy startup CabDost merges with neobank Dvara Money
The combined entity of CabDost and Dvara Money aims to facilitate the distribution of financial products and bring Urban Bharat within the formal financial umbrella.
CabDost, the startup that helps taxi drivers and other gig economy workers in filing their taxes and planning their finances, has merged with Dvara Money, a neobank catering to India's growing urban gig-economy workers and the blue-collar segment.
In a statement, Samir Shah, Executive Vice-Chair and Managing Trustee, Dvara Trusteeship Services Pvt. Ltd, said, "CabDost has been working relentlessly over the last few years to encourage Taxi drivers in adopting the formal financial system, pay their income tax, in turn, making them eligible to plan their finances and access funds from banks, financial institutions and registered fintechs like Dvara Money. Together, we aim to offer a full-service financial service offering and facilitate the distribution of financial products by leveraging technology and deep customer insights and bring Urban Bharat within the formal financial umbrella."
In the past three years, the statement claimed that CabDost has been running as a 'profit with purpose' startup. It has also partnered with India's leading aggregators, airport authorities, and other businesses with a scalable revenue model.
The startup has been focussing on simplifying tax and compliance needs by facilitating audited financial statements while partners apply for loans, registrations and GST filing.
"We started CabDost to bring financial inclusion after our research with 3,000 drivers realising that the new age contract workforce is excluded due to credibility issues. We are handholding communities through mass awareness about tax filing, PAN, and Aadhaar linking and financial literacy sessions across the country. We have built stress-free assisted mode for tax filing to help plan their finances," said Yamuna Sastry, Founder and Chief Enabling Officer, CabDost.
Dvara Money offers personalised financial solutions based on behavioural insights and helps customers improve their financial wellness.
Yamuna explained most of the revenues of CabDost have been reinvested for over 10,000 free IT filing campaigns with a focus on spreading awareness on financial literacy for both taxi drivers and their spouses, besides organising health camps, sessions about Government schemes and career counselling sessions for gig workforce children,
Shafeeque Thazhatheri, Co-founder CabDost, said, "Together we aim at building India's leading digital platform for financial products exclusively built for the Urban Bharat."
CabDost has been able to have a large impact in reducing informalities and building credibility by organising financial inclusion drives impacting more than lakh community members across 15 cities offline and 100 cities online.
Pramod Ghorpade, Co-Founder and Director, Dvara Money, said, "CabDost has been doing great work in bringing tax returns to the Urban Bharat segment. Leveraging our expertise in facilitating financial wellness in the form of Spark Account, Dvara Money will empower this segment with financial services, along with other benefits like tax returns, which will enable our customers to be better prepared to face challenges in the present and future. As a combined entity, we will be leveraging a community first approach with data insights from CabDost's previous 50,000+ tax filings and deep understanding about the financial services to curate Savings first wealth management advisory, thus nudging them away from risky chit funds."
Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta