How EarlySalary grew amid the pandemic

Started by Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal after interacting with over 100 working professionals, the consumer lending platform has grown to reach over Rs 230 crore in monthly disbursals and over Rs 4,750 crore in cumulative disbursals. The startup has over 500,000 active customers.

Thursday November 18, 2021 , 3 min Read

Good Morning,

For many of us, month-ends are usually a period of financial stress. This is where lending platforms like Pune-based EarlySalary step in to ease the financial woes.

Started by Akshay Mehrotra and Ashish Goyal after interacting with over 100 working professionals, the consumer lending platform has grown to reach over Rs 230 crore in monthly disbursals and over Rs 4,750 crore in cumulative disbursals. The startup has over 500,000 active customers.

With consumer behaviour seeing a shift post-pandemic and the financial ecosystem undergoing significant changes, EarlySalary is tapping into the opportunities and introducing new product lines to boost its growth.

EarlySalary added 100,000 new customers between January and August this year. In August 2021, EarlySalary saw its highest disbursal of over Rs 160 crore in a month. Its new business line of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) clocked over Rs 25 crore, and the number of personal loans processed in a month hit above 5,000.

"In Q3 and Q4, we were able to incubate new channels and also realised that the customer was ready for new products. We were able to grow our topline and become PAC positive, at a holding company level,” says Akshay.

The Interview

Rameesh Kailasam, CEO, IndiaTech.org describes to YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma the five-point framework created by IndiaTech.org to regulate India's crypto industry while mitigating risks and fostering innovation.

Editor’s Pick: Blume Ventures’ Arpit Agarwal on EV industry

The Indian electric vehicle market is further expected to reach $49 billion by 2026 with leading mobility startups like Ola Electric and automobile companies like Hero and Okinawa rushing to claim a stake.

In a conversation with Siddhartha Ahluwalia, Founder and Host of 100X Entrepreneur, Arpit Agarwal, Director at Blume Ventures talked about the challenges and opportunities in India’s EV industry. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Simplifying property ownership

With the real estate sector reviving post the pandemic, Somil Mathur and his batchmates – Jayant Panwar and Kenish Shah — started PropReturns, where people interested in real estate have the option to become owners of pre-leased commercial properties.

Until September 2021, over 2,000 people were using the platform, and it recorded between 15-20 transactions. Read more.

News & Updates

Sabeer Bhatia, the Silicon Valley-based techpreneur who co-founded Hotmail, has launched a new startup, ShowReel, a social video messaging platform.

Lending platform U GRO Capital and State Bank of India (SBI) partnered for a co-lending arrangement to disburse up to Rs 500 crore to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) by the end of this fiscal.

Operated by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Vaibhav Domkundwar, venture capital firm Better Capital has announced the final close of its debut fund of $15.8 million.

Up Funds, an early-stage fund by Upekkha Value SaaS Accelerator, is investing in eight startups. The funding cheques, between $100k and $200k per startup, will go to VideoForm, IOTRL, Urban AI, EnrichVideo, Bynry, GOVeva, OceanFrogs, and Kloudle.