Gurgaon-based fintech company SalarySe hopes to leverage the credit-on-UPI technology to garner a user base of 10 million salaried employees as borrowers over the next two-three years.
The start-up was founded by IIM graduates Piyush Bagaria, Saumeet Nanda and Mohit Gorisariya, with an aim to build a technology platform after the RBI allowed the operation of pre-sanctioned credit lines at banks through UPI in 2023.
Co-founder Bagaria, who studied at IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad and worked with JP Morgan, Carlyle Group and CVC Capital, before becoming an entrepreneur, said SalarySe has been able to secure funding of $5.25 million from Peak XV’s seed fund Surge and Pravega Ventures in an arduous time for fintechs amid the clamour of strict regulatory compliance.
The funding will help the start-up to develop a technology stack for credit-on-UPI. The fintech firm will offer credit through partnerships with banks to the employees of mid-tier companies.
“We are very fortunate that in a tricky market, we have got very strong investor backing. We have raised a reasonable amount of capital to sustain the business,” Bagaria said, adding that the fundraise shows investor confidence in the business model. Low credit penetration in India, and high merchant adoption of UPI are the supporting growth drivers for the fintech firm.
“UPI has seen unprecedented acceptance amongst both merchants and retail consumers across India, which makes it the right technology platform to deepen credit penetration for the middle class,” he said.
“Our customer acquisition cost is low because we work with corporates instead of seeking out customers directly. We are speaking to over 150 corporates now and we are also working with banks and NPCI. Our product is in the development stage and we are doing the pilot. We are expecting to launch by April,” he added.
Flipkart UPI
E-commerce major Flipkart has partnered Axis Bank, to launch a UPI handle for its users. Flipkart said that the UPI offering will enable users to avail the feature of online and offline merchant transactions within and outside of its marketplace, besides functionalities like recharges and bill payments.
