Tag: y combinator

Akudo raises $4.2 m seed funding from Y Combinator, JAFCO Asia, others

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Akudo, a learning-focused neobank for teenagers in India, on Monday, said it has raised $4.2 million (about ₹31 crore) in funding, led by Y Combinator, JAFCO Asia, Incubate Fund India, and AET Fund.

The seed round also saw participation from Tribe Capital, Cabra Capital, and marquee angels like Lalit Keshre (Groww co-founder), Rohit Taneja (Decentro co-founder) and others, a statement said.

The start-up aims to utilise the funds to expand its team and further refine its product offering to reach millions of financially under-prepared and under-served teenagers in India, it added.

Transaction volume growth

Currently, the company has over one lakh registered customers and has recorded a 75 per cent week-on-week growth in transaction volumes, the statement said.

“We are deeply grateful to have such experienced and established investors join our journey as we craft India’s first learning-focused neobank for teenagers. This capital will help us hire the right team and build in-app intelligence and features which will make financial learning more enjoyable for teenagers,” Akudo co-founder Lavika Aggarwal said.

Akudo wants every teenager to own their Akudo card as soon as they turn 13 and learn crucial lessons early on, Aggarwal added.

“Akudo is also bound to positively impact families of teens who will undertake their first step towards financial literacy and ultimately towards true financial empowerment,” Aggarwal said.

Supriya Singh, Head of South Asia investments at JAFCO Asia, noted that personal finance for young users has largely been unaddressed.

Founded in August 2020 by Lavika Aggarwal, Sajal Khanna, and Jagveer Gandhi, Akudo provides personalised prepaid Visa cards to teens and promotes a financial first learning environment through features to build a healthy habit of saving at an early age. Teens are rewarded for their good financial behaviour through engaging gamified reward systems.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , ,

Y Combinator-backed inai raises $4 million in seed round

Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Fintech SaaS startup inai has raised around $4 million in a seed round led by Berlin-based Paua Ventures and 9Unicorns.

Uncommon Capital, Soma Capital, Anarko ventures, Better Capital, and Gemba Capital along with angel investors — Sriram Krishnan, Lenny Rachitsky, Matt Robinson (Founder GoCardless, Nested), Louis Beryl (Rocketplace, Earnest) , Charlie Delingpole (Founder Comply Advantage), Naren Shaam (Founder Omio) and Kunal Shah (Founder CRED) — also participated in the round.

Founded by serial entrepreneurs Anantharaman Pattabiraman and Karthik Narayanan in May this year, inai is in the payments segment: inai is a no/low code platform that connects with multiple payment methods and payment gateways or processors in one simple integration. It allows merchants to manage checkout, payments, subscriptions, refunds, cancellations, chargebacks across the globe along with the ability to orchestrate any business logic such as localising the checkout by region, routing transactions intelligently or having failover logic to recover more transactions without needing any further developer involvement. Merchants can also connect with BI tools, fraud providers, invoicing and tax tools.

Strengthen tech team

inai will utilize the fresh capital to strengthen its technology team, expand its product portfolio, and build out their sales and marketing. The start-up is part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 cohort for start-ups.

Anantharaman Pattabiraman and Karthik Narayanan, Founders, inai, said, “While running our previous DTC business, we realised that with e-commerce going increasingly cross-border, optimising the checkout experience for the customer in each market is extremely important. inai allows merchants to go live within 60 minutes with an international payment stack that is optimised for every market they want to operate in and take control of their payment data. In addition, inai provides a rich software layer to support different subscription models for an e-commerce merchant or a SaaS business to sell across multiple geographies and localise the checkout experience.”

Also see: Tummoc raises $540,000 in seed funding round from angel investors

Federico Wengi , Partner at Paua Ventures said, “As the online payments tech-stack gets more sophisticated with new local payment methods, BNPL solutions (buy now pay later) and e-wallets, companies look for solutions to simplify and coordinate online payments. Inai taps into this large opportunity by offering a no-code software solution to simplify online payments once and for all.”

Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director, 9Unicorns, said, “The key differentiating factor of this platform is that it enables merchants to set up their payment stack with a single integration. Merchants are not required to write any code, which makes it easier for start-ups and e-commerce businesses to ramp up their operations without any technical expertise. In an increasingly digital economy like Asia, where e-commerce and cross border e-commerce is on an upward growth trajectory, inai is well-poised to capitalize on the cross border payments market.”

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , ,

Mobile e-commerce startup Bikayi raises 10.8 mln in Series-A funding, BFSI News, ET BFSI

Personal Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less


Bikayi, a mobile e-commerce startup has raised $10.8 million in Series-A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India. Earlier in August 2020, the company had raised $2 million as a part of its seed round of funding led by Y Combinator.

The company plans on using the raised capital to scale up their product offerings, accelerate product development, acquisition, and talent hiring.

Sonakshi Nathani, Co-founder & CEO, Bikayi, said, “We are on a mission to fulfil the aspirations of millions of small businesses that drive our economy. There are merchants who have made more than a million dollars via Bikayi e-stores in the span of a year. Such stories keep us obsessed to do better for our customers every single day.”

Bakayi plans on helping their customers to sell their products across India and make it big in the constantly evolving online commerce industry. Currently Bikayi has more than 4 million+ registered users on the platform.

“Rapid digitization of SMBs and the deepening of the e-commerce ecosystem are huge trends in India and Bikayi is building a next-gen product that sits at the confluence of both these trends. The team is excited to partner with Bikayi in their mission to empower millions of SMBs to engage their customers online,” said Shraeyansh Thakur, Vice President, Sequoia Capital India.



[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment , , , , , ,