The new Zolve funding will help the company expand its offerings as it realises that many customers uses it as their primary accounts.
Fintech startup Zolve, announced on Tuesday that it raised $40 million in a Series A funding round. The company intends to use the fresh proceeds to grow its financial services platform, according to CEO and founder Raghunandan G. At the moment, Zolve’s valuation is at $210 million.
DST Global led the funding round with participation from Tiger Global, and Alkeon Capital. Rounding off the participants’ list were already existing investors such as LightSpeed Venture Partners and Accel. The funds generated from this latest round now bring Zolve’s all-time raise, since its inception 10 months ago, to $55 million. Plus, this round represents one of the largest Series A funding in India’s startup ecosystem.
It’s an exciting day for us at Zolve as we announce raising $40 million in one of India's largest Series A funding rounds.
This round is led by #DSTGlobal with participation from #TigerGlobal, @AlkeonCapital, as well as existing investors @Accel and @lightspeedvp @raghugnandan pic.twitter.com/1qQSWv3I4C
— Zolve (@zolve_official) October 27, 2021
According to Zolve, it currently caters to about 70,000 customers in several countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, India, and the UK. In addition, the neobanking startup also plans to expand its partner network and recruit more hands in the US and India. This is so it can launch more products and offer services in more countries, particularly the European and Canadian markets.
Zolve’s primary focus as a company is to help US immigrants gain access to financial services. These include access to FDIC-insured bank accounts, and credit and debit cards based on the individual’s home country credit score. Furthermore, the Zolve system does not require a social security number or US credit history to facilitate this service. The Bangalore-headquartered firm says it plans to expand its service to instant remittance, insurance, and loans in the near future.
Zolve Popularity Exploded Among Immigrants Prior to Latest Funding Round
Raghunandan G, who also co-founded TaxiForSure, established Zolve to assist the large influx of students and working professionals migrating to the US. Even after spending several months in the US, a lot of them struggle to secure credit cards from local banks. Subsequently, this class of immigrants – particularly from India, end up paying a premium to access financial services. Established in September, Zolve rolled out its credit card to about 2,000 customers last month. The platform has since seen over 70,000 hopefuls, which is indicative of its success so far. This led to more customers taking full advantage of the company’s offerings. Before long, demand came flooding in from immigrants from other countries.
Raghunandan admits that even Zolve did not anticipate how extensively customers would use the service. The fintech was merely trying to provide credit cards to immigrants without social security numbers – with banking services an afterthought. However, he says a lot of customers now use their Zolve account as their primary account. The CEO said that customers now keep substantial sums of money in their accounts.
Zolve’s funding round comes just weeks after CredAvenue, a debt-solution platform based in Chennai, raised $90 million, India’s largest-ever Series A round to date. Furthermore, the second-largest and third-largest rounds are those of Ola Electric Mobility and Mensa Brands. The former raised $58 million back in 2019, while the latter pulled in $50 million earlier this year in May. Other notables include FamPay ($38 million in June 2021) and Design Café ($29 million in December 2018).
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