Digital Gold Lending Provider Rupeek Raises $ 6.83 Million Funding
With this round of funding, Rupeek’s total funding reached $ 9.25 million
Bengaluru-based online gold loan providing start-up Rupeek reportedly raised $ 6.83 million (INR 44 Cr) in a new financing round led by Accel Partners in participation with Sequoia Capital.
A report in VCCircle cited documents filed by Rupeek with the Ministry of Commercial Affairs (MCA) which revealed that Accel Partners invested $ 5 million (INR 32.55 Cr) and the rest was invested by Sequoia Capital.
In January 2017, Sequoia Capital has also invested $ 2 million in the company, according to records.
Further, he revealed that in 2016 the company raised $ 346,000 (2.23 Cr INR) from investors like Anand Chandrasekaran (former CPO, Snapdeal), Anupam Mittal (founder, People Group), Kunal Shah (founder, Freecharge) and Ravi Garikipati (CTO, Flipkart).
With this round of funding, Rupeek’s total funding reached $ 9.25 million (INR 59.6 Cr), the documents revealed.
The report estimated that the company will reach a valuation of $ 31 million (INR 200 Cr) after this round of funding.
Earlier in September 2017, the reports also revealed that Rupeek plans to raise nearly $ 12 million in a funding round led by Accel India and Lok Capital.
Rupeek was founded in 2015 by Maniyar and Ashwin Soni. The startup aims to provide gold loans to individuals after receiving their proof of identity and address as well as a void check. He claims to disburse loans in an hour.
Rupeek accepts gold jewelry and offers his loans for one year.
The gold lending space has been mainly dominated by non-bank financial institutions (NBFCs) like Muthoot Finance and Manappuram Finance.
However, recently a few platforms like Gold Uno, Achiever Quick Gold Loan among others have mushroomed to offer gold loans to people.
Recently, players like Paytm and Flipkart has also ventured into the gold lending segment.
In April 2017, Paytm, backed by Japanese conglomerate Softbank collaborated with MMTC-PAMP to launch Digital Gold. This allowed users to buy gold online and store it for free in MMTC-PAMP’s vault.
Later in December 2017, Flipkart’s digital payment affiliate, PhonePe, signed a partnership with SafeGold to launch a digital gold product. With this, a user can buy and sell certified 24k gold through the PhonePe app.
The World Gold Council has valued this Indians currently own over 24,000 tonnes of gold worth up to $ 900 billion. With the growing scenario of digital access, this market is expected to grow a lot more.
It’s got to see what innovation gold lending provider Rupeek can bring to the stage with its new funding round to challenge deep-pocketed players like Flipkart and Paytm.