[Funding alert] Teen-focused fintech startup Pencilton raises $330K in a pre-seed round by Jupiter

Hyderabad-based teen-focused fintech startup Pencilton on Tuesday announced that it has raised $330,000 in a pre-seed round led by Jupiter (registered as Amica Financial Technologies Pvt Ltd). The round also saw participation from prominent founders including Nilesh Patel and Prashant Singh (Founders of LeadSquared), Ashish Sharma (MD, Innoven Capital), Abhishek Goyal (Founder of Tracxn), Himanshu Sharma (Founder, Aspiring Minds), Kunal Sinha (Founder, GlowRoad), Vignesh Ramanujam (Partner at Spoonfeed), and angel investor Tirumalareddy Karri.

According to the official statement, the fresh funds to be utilised for product enhancement and initial growth.

Founded in 2020, by VishwajitPureti, Ashish Singh, Pallavi Tipparaju, and Viraj Gadde, Pencilton offers a first-of-its-kind debit card, PencilCard, to teenagers and students to help them manage their expenses while teaching them the basics of money management.

PencilCard, a RuPay debit card for teens across India, can be activated and managed via the Pencilton app.

Speaking of the funding, Vishwajit Pureti, Co-founder and CEO, Pencilton, said,

"This round is predominantly of great strategic importance as it serves as a vehicle for us to have some of the best minds from the fintech, as well as the startup ecosystem, join us on our mission. It gives us access to stellar expertise across fintech, fundraising, GTM, user acquisition and more to help navigate the next steps as we scale up."

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"We are incredibly excited for the journey ahead where we are going to announce many industry-leading initiatives that will help bring the best of fintech tools as well as digital financial literacy to teens & students across India," Vishwajit further added.

As part of its larger goal, Pencilton aspires to educate the younger generation on financial literacy and management, and become the most innovative and prominent player in this space.

Talking about their investment, Rahool Gadkari, Director of Product, Jupiter, said, 

"Jupiter is very excited to invest in Pencilton. The teen/pre-teen banking segment is nascent and growing rapidly. We believe that the Pencilton team understands the space well and is passionately solving both kids' and parents' needs. At Jupiter, we will continue to invest or partner with teams which are solving problems adjacent to our own and help make our ecosystem stronger."