Indiagold Raises $12 million in its Series A Funding Round
Indiagold, a platform that provides gold loan, digital loan and other services, has announced raising $12 million in its Series A round of funding. The funding round was led by financial services fintech PayU and Falcon Edge Capital-managed Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI). This marks PayU’s first investment in the online gold space.
The funding round witnessed the participation of 3one4 Capital, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Zerodha-backed Rainmatter Capital, and existing investor, Leo Capital.
Indiagold was established in 2020 by Deepak Abbot and Nitin Misra, both of whom worked with Paytm as Senior Vice Presidents until 2019. The company offers gold-backed loans, gold savings, and gold locker services to more than a million customers.
The co-founders say, “India offers a large $650 billion addressable gold loan market which is highly fragmented and currently dominated by the informal segment. Even the formal segment hasn’t adopted digital practices at scale. Indiagold’s suite of financial products bridges this critical need gap by digitally transforming lending against gold.”
The gold financing business in India is mostly offline, with the informal segment accounting for 70 percent of gold loans. These loans address the liquidity needs of Indians without access to unsecured credit, which is availed by less than 10 percent of the total working population.
Misra and Abbot adds, “We are proud to have the backing of industry-leading growth investors and take it as a reaffirmation of the inherent strength of our value proposition. With the support of our existing and new investors, we are moving aggressively towards our larger vision of establishing gold holdings as an alternate credit score, and creating a gold back credit platform for lenders to provide instant credit against gold.”
The company states that it offers fast, safe and convenient solutions to monetize household gold to meet specific credit requirements, and is emerging as an alternative to India’s unorganized gold loan market.
On the investment, Vijay Agicha, Global Head of Strategy and Growth, PayU states, “We are very impressed with Deepak and Nitin's proven record of developing financial products at scale and have faith in their ability to build a profitable business. We believe that Indiagold has the unique opportunity to expand the addressable market on the back of its product offerings and scale the business up significantly.”
Navroz D Udwadia, Co-founder of Falcon Edge Capital says, “Gold, found in almost every household in India, is the key to provide affordable credit to every Indian. Indiagold’s doorstep gold loan and gold locker products enable it to offer credit at more affordable rates. We believe the gold loan market is ripe for disruption and are thrilled to back Indiagold’s founders.”
