TPG’s The Rise Fund and Norwest Venture Partners led the funding round, which valued the start-up at around $300 million
Pune-based fintech EarlySalary raised $110 million in a Series D funding round led by TPG’s The Rise Fund and Norwest Venture Partners. Existing investor Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Limited also participated in this fundraising round, a mix of primary and secondary share sales.
The digital lending platform, valued at around $300 million during this round, plans to use the capital to accelerate its loan book. It will also expand its presence from 18 to 150 cities over two years. It has been augmenting its management team steadily over the past six months and will hire more senior professionals as it outlines an aggressive roadmap to scale up.
With digital lending gaining popularity, EarlySalary has increased its customer base to 12 million app downloads with approximately one million customers. The fintech will continue to concentrate on its Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services, a domain it entered after it acquired Healthfin this February. In addition to health, it now offers education and consumer financing and is now contemplating offering high-ticket value loans worth Rs 50,000 to Rs 80,000 through its BNPL division.
Ashish Goyal and Akshay Mehrotra founded EarlySalary in 2015 to offer working professionals earning an annual income ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh instant finance of up to Rs 5 lakh. Over the past seven years, it has disbursed around 2.8 million loans worth Rs 7,500 crore. In 2019, it raised $34 million from Eight Roads, Chiratae Ventures, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Limited and other angel investors.
The report by Chiratae Ventures and Ernst & Young also stated that it expects the industry to have $1 trillion in assets under management by 2030
Existing investors Elevation Capital and Matrix Partners India also participated in the funding round
LC Nueva Investment Partners led the seed extension round