BENGALURU: Lending startup Avail Financehas raised $9 million in a second round of equity funding from Matrix Partners India. The startup, founded by Ankush Aggarwaland Tushar Mehndiratta, will use the funds to foray into a neo-banking platform.
In March last year, the startup raised $17.2 million from Matrix Partners, along with multiple seed investors like Ola founders Ankit Bhatia and Bhavish Aggarwal, Cred founder Kunal Shah, Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal and Mswipe founder Manish Patel. Avail Finance wants to extend its portfolio to a complete digital banking offering for bluecollar workers, addressing their requirements across savings, investments and insurance.
“Our initial experience in lending helped us learn that we need to step back and create a complete product suite so that our customer can live their entire lives on Avail,” said Aggarwal.
“Hence, we are creating a virtual banking solution for them.” Avail Finance started with a personal loan product for employees, partnering Ola, Swiggy, Zomato and Quess Corp.
The company has developed an interest-free loan that protects this customer segment from income fluctuations.
“We will be extending loans of Rs 3,000-5,000 to start with, and give them a period of one month to repay without any extra cost. If they like the service, borrowers will be offered an option to leave a tip while repaying the loan,” said Aggarwal.
[“source=economictimes.indiatimes.”]
