[Funding alert] Digital bank Niyo raises $100M from Accel and Lightrock India

Bengaluru-headquartered Finnew Solutions, which owns and operates consumer facing neobank, NIYO SOLUTIONS, has raised $100 million in a Series C round of funding from Acceland LightrockIndia. Venture Catalysts-backed Beams FinTech Fund also participated in the round, apart from returning investors Prime Venture Partners, JS Capital and others.

With this round, Niyo has raised a total equity capital of around $150 million since its inception in 2015. Avendus Capital acted as the financial advisor to Niyo for the current round.

Niyo will utilise the capital for product innovation, marketing and branding, increasing its distribution and hiring top talent across functions. The company is also evaluating inorganic expansion – especially in the space of lending technology and insurance technology, Co-founder and CTO of the company Virendra Bisht told YourStory.

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“The inorganic expansion is based on the demand from our customer base, which is looking for personal loans, BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) etc as well as sachet insurance products. Acquisitions will fast-track our growth in the sector and we are not restricted by the current amount of capital we have raised,” said Virendra.

The company is also planning to raise additional capital later this year. It has made two acquisitions so far, including mutual fund investment platform Goalwise in 2020, and personal finance management platform Index in 2021. The company will be launching its first integrated product with Goalwise soon, said Virendra.

Founded in 2015 by banking executives Virender and Vinay Bagri, Niyo offers digital banking services to retail customers starting with personal savings bank accounts. The company works with the blue-collar workforce through its Niyo Bharat offering providing them products like zero balance lifetime prepaid card and with digital savvy retail investors through NiyoX which offers savings and wealth management products.

Going ahead, Niyo will grow its suite of offerings as part of NiyoX with deposit based savings accounts and offer credit cards, integrated forex and other products over the next three months. The year and half old vertical has grown to serve 1 million customers.

“Our primary sources of revenues include banking fee income and income from interchange especially from customer transacting outside of India. We see lending and insurance as larger opportunities,” said Virendra.

“We are excited to back the fastest growing neobank in India, Niyo. Vinay, Viren and team have built a fantastic product with a clear value prop for customers which is reflected in their phenomenal growth. We look forward to partnering with Niyo in changing the way India banks,” said Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel in a statement.

Niyo serves a customer base of nearly 4 million and over 7000 corporations. The company has around 500 employees of which nearly 250 are focused on technology, product and design.

The neobanking space has seen increased investor interest with consumer facing neobanks including Jitendra Gupta led Jupiter raising $86.6 million in December 2021. Neobank for working professionals,Fi , also raised $50 million from B Capital, Falcon Edge and other investors in November 2021.