Pune-startup EarlySalary raises Rs 100 cr

5/1/2018

PUNE: The company EarlySalary allows salaried individuals to avail instant loans for about 30 days. Last September, the company had raised a debt of about USD 779,000 from IFMR Trust.

Pune-based lending startup EarlySalary said it has raised Rs 100 crore in a round led by Fidelity owned Eight Roads Ventures and existing investors including IDG Ventures India and Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd. (DHFL).

The company competes with other startups in the small ticket loans space such as Capital Float, Lending Kart, LoanTap, MoneyTap, BillionLoans besides others. Founded in 2015 by Akshay Mehrotra (ex-BigBazaar) and Ashish Goyal (ex-bajaj Allianz), EarlySalary allows salaried individuals to avail instant loans for an average tenure of 30 days or till the next salary cycle.

These loans are similar to salary advances or credit card cash withdrawals. The company will use the money to accelerate its growth plans which include a target of 100,000 loan disbursements per month by the end of 2018. The company conducts risk assessment by leveraging social profiling to go beyond financial underwriting and IndiaStack.

Initially operating in eight metros, EarlySalary is now catering to working professionals in 15 cities across India. In September 2017, the company had raised a debt of about USD 779,000 from IFMR, which has invested in competing startups such as Lendingkart and LoanTap.

"We have three clear focus areas to work towards. Firstly, to further improve our technology stack and work on further investing in machine learning systems for better, faster and more prudent risk management. Secondly, to focus on building additional products and tenure options to help our customers across their varied cash needs. And thirdly, to leverage this better technology and broader product portfolio to grow our monthly volume to 100,000 disbursements by end of 2018," said Akshay Mehrotra, co-founder and CEO Early Salary.

Earlier in May 2017, EarlySalary had raised Rs 27 crore from IDG Ventures India and DHFL. In the last seven months, the company claims to have received more than 1 million new app downloads. Following this investment, Dhyanesh Shah, principal at Eight Roads Ventures, will join the board of EarlySalary.