Gold-centric lending platform, India Gold, has secured a $12 Mn funding in a Series A round. Prosus owned by fintech startup PayU and AplhaWave Incubation led the round. Better Tomorrow Ventures, 3One4 Capital and Rainmatter Capital are among other investors who participated in the round. The Series A funding has come barely 6 months after the NCR based startup raised $2Mn in a seed funding round. The seed funding round saw the participation of several high profile angel investors including Kunal Shah, Amrish Rau, Kunal Bahl and Miteen Sampat.
Although India Gold has not commented on post funding valuation, the sources privy to the matter claimed that the company commanded valuation of nearly $40-50 during the Series A round.
Following the latest round, India Gold will aim to expand its gold based loan services to 10 more cities by end of the current year.
India Gold is founded by two former Paytm executives Deepak Abbot and Nitin Mishra. The company is seeking to capitalize on India’s unwavering obsession with gold savings, which makes India among the largest consumer of gold.
The startup essentially wants Indians to put their gold deposit for a better use by securing easy loan against their gold deposit. It provides easy loans to customers against physical as well as digital gold through its llateocker service.
India Gold competes with well-funded startups like Rupeek, which kick-started Series E round in March this year to raise $33 Mn. Another emerging startup in this space, Ruptok, raised INR 14 crore via debt funding round barely few days back. These new age startups are trying to surmount challenge to brick and mortar companies that have traditionally dominated the gold loan market. The most prominent brick and mortar players are Muthoot Finance and Mannappuram Finance.