Global digital bank Zolve has secured $15 million in capital through a seed funding round that was led by Accel & Lightspeed.
Others who took part in Zolve’s investment round include Blume Ventures and several angel investors: Dr. Ashish Gupta (ex-Helion MD), Greg Kidd (angel investor in Twitter & Ripple), Kunal Shah (founder of Cred), Rahul Mehta (Managing partner at DST Global) and Rahul Kishore (Senior Managing Director, Coatue Capital).
As mentioned in a release shared with CI, this round marks the very first investment of the Founder Collective (investor in Airtable and Uber) in an Indian startup.
Launched in December of last year, Zolve aims to serve as a cross-border neobank for the “global citizen.” Its services are designed to cater to “a potential $85 billion market.” The funds raised will be used to develop the core technology stack, support the team and the project’s marketing efforts.
Raghunandan G, Founder at Zolve, stated:
“In an increasingly connected world, though people are moving across countries at an accelerated pace, the global financial systems are archaic and fragmented, creating headwinds for a global citizen. With Zolve, we aim to create a financial world beyond borders that provides equitable access to global financial products on one single platform.”
Raghunandan added that the cross-border neobank will focus on supporting global citizens with accessing financial products in a seamless manner. He also mentioned that the company plans to assist people with saving money and investing it, “helping them be financially free to pursue their ambition, no matter where they are.”
Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel said that the global citizen community is “largely underserved in terms of access to financial services.” He also noted that Accel thinks that there’s “a huge market opportunity for Zolve.”
Daniel added:
“Raghu has a proven track record as a founder and we are delighted to partner with him again, on his latest venture.”
Bejul Somaia, Lightspeed India Partners, remarked:
“We’re excited to back Raghu and the … Zolve team in solving for this significant opportunity. Individuals with financial identities in multiple geographies need seamless global financial solutions and we believe the team’s strong identification with the problem will enable them to deliver compelling and innovative financial experiences.”
David Frankel, Managing Partner at Founder Collective and an early investor in Coupang, Olo, and PillPack, remarked:
“It is an absurd reality that global citizens have to rebuild their financial profile when they move to a new country.”
He explained that Zolve aims to address this problem by helping people get “fair access to a suite of modern financial tools so they can participate in the new economy on an equal footing from day one.”
He also noted that as one of India’s most successful business owners and entrepreneurs, Raghunandan may be able to help this startup expand operations locally and in other jurisdictions as well.