India’s consumer lending fintech, EarlySalary, has closed its series D funding round of $110 million led by TPG’s The Rise Fund and Norwest Venture Partners.
Existing investor Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Limited also participated in the investment round.
This is EarlySalary’s largest fundraise to date, “following the company’s last financing round in 2019.” The company had “raised $34 million in previous rounds from Eight Roads, Chiratae Ventures, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Limited and angel investors.”
The latest investment will “enable EarlySalary to grow its business significantly in the next 24 months.” The series D round of $110 million “includes a secondary sale.” Unitus Capital acted as “the exclusive advisor for the transaction.”
Founded in Pune in 2015, EarlySalary claims that it “provides accessible financial lending solutions of up to Rs. 5 lakhs to working professionals.” The company expanded into the affordability segment and “introduced Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services to its customer segment with a clear focus on education, health and consumer product financing.”
Over the course of its journey, EarlySalary reportedly “expanded its services to over 150 cities and aims to continue growing its customer base.”
EarlySalary’s core purpose is “to provide a financial ecosystem for young and aspirational individuals.” 80% of Indians use banking services, however, “almost 50% of the Indian population doesn’t have access to credit due to various reasons.” The focus of EarlySalary is to “provide a safe and reliable credit platform to the underserved population, primarily in Tier 3 and 4 cities, at affordable rates.”
EarlySalary’s comprehensive suite of products “includes personal loans payable in EMIs over multiple tenures.” The company will continue “to expand its BNPL segment and build out an extensive network of partners across the healthcare and edtech segments.”
The company added that they will continue “to focus on enhancing its tech and analytics frameworks while delivering a high degree of transparency, risk management and customer centricity to achieve its growth plan.”
As mentioned in the update, EarlySalary has “added key executives across risk, sales, treasury and other functions to strengthen its management team.”
The company has “expanded its presence from 18 cities to over 150 cities and increased its customer base to 12 million app downloads with approximately 1 million customers.”
It has “grown 7x over the last two years and emerged as a market leader in providing financial assistance to young middle-income individuals across the country.” The business continues “to be profitable over the pandemic and expects to grow manifold in the future.”
Akshay Mehrotra, Co-founder and CEO said:
“We believe in a customer-first approach to providing credit to young middle-income Indians and we are thankful for the trust millions of Indians have put in us. As our customers’ aspirations and credit needs grow, we will focus to continue to retain their trust and grow with them. The funding will not only help us in expanding our cash business but also build an array of capabilities to efficiently serve a larger segment of customers. We are confident in our ability to keep innovating and achieving 10x large growth in our customer base.”