Relooking at India’s $1.5T gold assets

Good Morning,

Digital gold or gold loans weren’t the segments former Paytm executives Nitin Misra and Deepak Abbot wanted to explore. The duo, who created several financial products and were building the digital loan segment for Paytm, didn’t think it would be a viable business. 

But in 2020, they founded indiagold, a startup operating in the digital gold lock and locker segment. 

The founders’ early reluctance wasn’t based on market size. In fact, just based on market size, gold loans would be a great segment to start up as, according to the World Gold Council, Indians are sitting on gold worth $1.5 trillion. 

In 2020, the gold-based lending platform raised an initial seed round of Rs 14 crore from Leo Capital, Blume Founders Fund, Sequoia Scout, and seven angels. 

Last week, it confirmed a $12 million fundraise from PayU and Alpha Wave Incubation Fund, along with participation from Better Tomorrow Ventures, 3one4 Capital, and Rainmatter Capital.

indiagold offers users the option to store gold in lockers at much cheaper rates than banks, and also proffers a credit line for the deposited gold. As of June this year, indiagold claims to have sold gold worth Rs 4 crore. 

Customers can store gold and earn close to six percent interest annually on the value of the deposit, and the startup already has over 800,000 customers across Delhi-NCR. 

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Editor’s Pick: Techie Tuesday

American psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, “In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.” For healthtech company Augnito’s Chief Product Officer, Spriha Biswas, it was the former that dictated every step of her career as a techie. 

Born and brought up in Tatanagar (Jamshedpur), Spriha had never had a dull moment in her school years, as she constantly strived to keep learning. Read more.

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In 2014, he moved to Mumbai, along with his wife, Purvi Pugalia. The duo set up an umbrella company called Soch Group, aiming to launch several startups under it. Over a month ago, they launched their second venture, This or That. Read more.

News & Updates

• Global venture capital firm Accel launched Accel Atoms — the VC firm's pre-seed funding programme — where it will invest $250,000 in startups with an uncapped convertible. Accel Atoms is part of the sixth Accel fund, which is $550 million.

• In a bid to reduce its carbon footprint, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced that customers will now have to explicitly request for cutlery, tissues, and straws, rather than opting out of the cutlery option.

• PhonePe said it has received an insurance broking license from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), which will enable it to sell insurance products from all insurance companies in India.

• According to global jobs site Indeed, hiring across sectors seems to have picked up pace in India, reaching the pre-pandemic level of February 2020. The hiring is driven by segments like technology, personal services, retail, and food.

• The Finance Ministry extended the last date to avail the GST amnesty scheme, under which taxpayers have to pay a reduced fee for delayed filing of monthly returns by three months till November 30.

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“It almost looks like we're trying to build like an OYO of Lockers. Our goal is to get customers comfortable, to provide them more security for their precious assets. But more important is to get customers comfortable enough to deposit their gold in our safe custody.” 

— Nitin Misra, Co-founder, indiagold

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