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Bengaluru-based fintech startup Siply is a micro-savings app that aims to help India’s underserved masses save and invest. It has seen exponential growth in the last eight months, growing its userbase by 24X and revenue by 40X. 0 CLAPS
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In 2010, Sousthav Chakrabarty was working as a managing director at a firm that helped high net worth individuals (HNIs) invest their money. However, when his father had a heart attack and needed surgery, he had to borrow money from an exploitative loan shark to cover the medical costs. In a conversation with YourStory, Sousthav reveals, “When my father went through a medical procedure, I had to borrow money from a money lender at about 5 percent interest a month. He had a dual chamber pacemaker implant, and the pacemaker itself cost Rs. 4.5 lakh.”
While Sousthav was able to get himself out of that mess, he still remembers the financial helplessness that plagued that moment, as well as his childhood growing up. He said that he “didn’t find anybody giving support or guidance to our earlier generations.”. In August 2020, Sousthav and his serial founding partner Anil Bhat decided to build their fourth venture together, and Siply was created to “provide financial guidance for the next generation”. Siply is a micro-savings app that aims to help India’s underserved masses save and invest from as low as Rs 1. The fintech startup is “making savings micro, flexible, and vernacular”. With Sousthav’s 18 years of banking experience, including stints at Citibank and HDFC, and Anil’s 16 years of experience in tech, including a job at Yahoo and early roles at both Myntra and Cure.Fit, they believe they can build a fintech that can make a difference to 400 million Indians. ALSO READ
Building new investment avenues
According to Sousthav, the Indian public market growth since March 2020 has been touted as a success for financial inclusion, but the benefits are limited to those people with access and understanding of the market. For the 400 million people that Siply is targeting, Sousthav believes that this boom has not made a difference. “They were struggling 10 years back, they’re struggling today, and they will probably be struggling 10 years from now,” he says. Apart from the regular education and equity options, one of the first unique products Siply offered potential customers was a Smallcase investment into the 50 largest companies on Nifty for a minimum Rs 100 per unit. This product was revolutionary for users because it leveraged the names of companies that many people have heard of, while reducing the financial requirement to entry significantly. However, despite this move and the referral programme that helped Siply grow their userbase exponentially in the last six months, Sousthav says only one-sixth of its monthly users takes advantage of these investment vehicles. Rather than blindly attempting to force the product onto the other five-sixths of its users, Siply is instead attempting to build new investment avenues that may interest them. A digital chit fund for a minimum Rs 250 per month was launched in January, while a free-to-open National Pension Scheme (NPS) account is in the works for an April launch. As of now, Siply has facilitated six million people to either take out microloans worth a cumulative Rs 103 crore, or make cumulative investments of over Rs 175 crore. With a $25 million Series A round nearly closed, including $10 million from QI Ventures agreed upon, Sousthav is looking to scale up what he deems a successful strategy so far. While he refuses to call Siply a neobank, he does provide a glimpse into what he wants the company to become. The CEO describes the company’s future as “a de facto platform where people come to save money and have a better financial future”. Sousthav’s passion has seen rewards as his fintech startup scales. Siply has grown its userbase from 250,000 people to six million in eight months, and has increased its revenue, including both loans and investments, by 40X in the same period, according to Sousthav. However, despite this rapid growth, there is still a genuine compassion that comes through when Sousthav is talking about Siply’s users. “I wish people took more interest in not just the affluent segment, but also the aspirational segment. We call them the aspirational segment, not the struggling segment, because they are aspiring.”
Sousthav, Anil, and Siply seem to be on a mission to make sure that no one has to take out a 5 percent monthly interest loan to afford to keep their parents alive, and its rapid growth seems to show that Siply is going about it the right way. Edited by Teja Lele Desai
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How fintech startup Siply is helping 400M underserved Indians to save and invest

Siply is a micro-savings app that aims to help India’s underserved masses save and invest from as low as Rs 1.Siply aims to build products to address the specific problems their potential customers face.One example he shared was the technological difficulties of building a financial product for financially illiterate customers, who often don’t know English, and are using outdated smartphones that no longer receive Android updates. {{#error}} {{error}} {{/error}} {{^error}} Something went wrong.For the 400 million people that Siply is targeting, Sousthav believes that this boom has not made a difference. Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated & summarized by a computer program and has not been created by StartupAround.

LetsVenture In The News(20-26 Dec)
Dhurina, Siply, Minko & More
Edtech, Fintech & more. Dhurina Rakes In $ 1.2 Million Led by RVCF, LetsVenture
Edtech platform, Dhurina, has concluded its second round of funding and has raised $ 1.2 million led by RVCF and other investors like LetsVenture, RBD Publication, India Accelerator, Precision Startup Advisory, and Pai Ventures. The freshly infused funds will be deployed towards technological enhancements, aggressive business growth, expansion in the company size, and improving the product’s functionality for students. Bangalore based Siply to double its headcount in 2022
Siply, a tech-enabled micro-savings platform today announced that the company is looking to double its headcount by 2022 and hire across technology, marketing and operations. Sousthav Chakrabarty, Co-founder & CEO, Siply, says, “Our vision is to be the preferred financial services partner to over 40 crore Indians, who are not yet a part of the formal banking system. To drive this endeavour, we are building a team that will help accelerate action to achieve our vision.”
Founded in July 2020 by Sousthav Chakrabarty and Anil Bhat, Siply wants to be the preferred financial services brand to the 40 crore Indians who are not yet a part of the formal banking system. The company is building a platform that is tailor-made to serve the specific needs of this segment, which has so far been largely overlooked by current financial institutions like banks and mutual fund houses. Minko raises $1.5 million seed funding
Minko, a retail fintech platform that provides credit facilities to small kirana and retail shop owners, has raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round led by LC Nueva AIF, an India-domiciled category II alternative investment fund, and LetsVenture. Apart from Minko Credit, the platform added three new products within the last six months — Minko Invoices, Minko QR Code, and Minko Gold. With the digital B2B invoice payment stack embedded with credit, the company aims to move online a large segment of the multibillion-dollar ‘retailer-to-distributor’ payments, which mainly happens via cash and cheque. The company plans to utilise the raised capital to hire more talent, especially in its tech and sales teams, and expand across India.

LetsVenture In The News(20-26 Dec)

2 weeks ago
0 8 1 minute read
Bengaluru: Bengaluru-based micro-savings platform, Siply, has raised $3.2 million in equity and debt as part of its Pre-Series A. The round was led by LetsVenture, AngelList India, Founder Room Circle and saw participation from investors like Kunal Shah (Cred), Beerud Sheth (Gupshup), Satish Grampurohit (Ex-Infosys), Shanti Mohan (LetsVenture) and Pratekk Agarwaal (Angel Investor, Ex CBO-BharatPe). Existing investor JITO Angel Network also participated in the round, the startup said in a statement on Monday. “With these funds, we shall further the reach of Siply to over 400 towns and strengthen our team & tech,” cofounder and CEO of Siply, Sousthav Chakrabarty said. Siply said it plans to raise Series A, and in the next 12 months, reach a user base of one crore users and process three crore transactions with overall savings of Rs 600 crore and disburse over Rs 500 crores in loans through its micro-credit offering. In 14 months, Siply has attained over 15 lakh users who have collectively done 20 lakh transactions amounting to total savings of Rs 150 crore, it was stated. Published by Economic Times on October 25 | https://bit.ly/3nPCqXV
Check out how  Revenue Based Financing  is the asset class for the Smart Investor and what investors should account for in  Bharat-focused startups. 2 weeks ago

Micro-savings platform Siply raises $3.2 million in pre-Series A funding

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Edtech startup Language Curry said it has raised $600,000 from LetsVenture, IAN, Varsha Rao, CEO, Nurx and former head of global operations AirBnB, and Rebalance. The round also saw participation from Ajay Rajgharia, Nitin Zamre, Shashvat Nakhrani, co-founder, BharatPe, Karan Tanna, founder, Ghost Kitchens India, and Rohit Chanana, amongst others. Founded by Aneesha Jyoti, Vatsala Sharma, and Puneet Singh, the company aims to make Indian language learning effective through their culturally relevant colloquial approach that allows learners to “speak Indian”. The company said it has grown over 500% in the past 6 months to close in on 8,00,000 downloads to become the most loved app in the language learning space, often pegged next to global language learning apps. They currently offer 10 Indian Languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Kannada, and Gujarati. AiRTH
AiRTH, an antimicrobial air purifiers manufacturing start-up, said it has raised an undisclosed seed funding from Whiteboard Capital, Syrma Technology, and FIRST (IIT Kanpur). The company said it plans to use the funding to bolster its production lines to meet pan-India demand and modernise its after-sales services to provide the utmost convenience to its customers. Founded by Ravi Kaushik, the company aims to counter the deadly effects of unseen viruses and germs in the air. Its key product is an antimicrobial air purifier that works on a unique DCD (deactivate-capture-deactivate) mechanism to provide real-time deactivation of unseen viruses and germs in the surroundings. “It’s only been a year since we started our journey, and we are delighted to host an impressive clientele, including the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Reserve Bank of India (RBI), hospitals, and more, who believe in our product and vision of the company. Besides countering COVID-19 strains in the air, our purifier is designed to deactivate other harmful germs and viruses, which is quite beneficial in the age of rising pollution and deadly air-borne diseases,” Ravi Kaushik, founder and CEO of AiRTH, said. “Today, more and more people have understood our work’s importance and reached out to us to help them have a healthier indoor environment. The recently acquired funding will help us strengthen our operations to continue serving our customers, making India a place to breathe without toxicity,” he added. Siply
Siply, a Bengaluru-based microfinancing platform, said it has raised $3.2 million in equity and debt as part of its pre-Series A round led by LetsVenture, AngelList India, Founder Room Circle. The round also saw participation from Kunal Shah, founder of Cred, Beerud Sheth of Gupshup, Satish Grampurohit, ex-Infosys, Shanti Mohan of LetsVenture and Pratekk Agarwaal, Angel Investor, Ex CBO-BharatPe. Existing investor JITO Angel Network also participated in the round. Founded in July 2020 by Sousthav Chakrabarty and Anil Bhat,  Siply provides "sachet financial services" to contract workers, blue-collar workers, gig economy workers, and small business owners. In 14 months the Startup has 15 Lakh users and has collectively done 20 Lakh transactions amounting to total savings of 150+ Crores. These are via the 37+ large partnerships including Swiggy, Awign, Hesa, Apna, Moneytap, and Grameen among others. The company said in a statement. The company launched micro-credit in July, and in 4 months it has disbursed more than 50 thousand loans for a total volume of more than 30 Crore. It said the loan book has grown at 150% month on month over the last 4 months. Siply said it plans to soon raise Series A and in the next 12 months reach a user base of 1 Crore users and process 3 Crore transactions with overall savings of 600 Crore and disburse over 500 crore in loans through its micro-credit offering.

Language Curry, AiRTH, Siply raise funds

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Siply operates as a micro-savings app that helps the underserved masses invest and save from as low as ₹1.

Date	Round	Amount	Investors	Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model.	Revenue	Sources
10/25/2021	Seed VC	$3.2M	AngelList India, Beerud Sheth, Founders Circle Capital, Kunal Shah, LetsVenture, Prateek Agarwal, Satish Grampurohit, and Shanti Mohan		0 FY undefined	7
1/11/2021	Seed	$99M	Subscribe to see more		0 FY undefined	10

Date	10/25/2021	1/11/2021
Round	Seed VC	Seed
Amount	$3.2M	$99M
Investors	AngelList India, Beerud Sheth, Founders Circle Capital, Kunal Shah, LetsVenture, Prateek Agarwal, Satish Grampurohit, and Shanti Mohan	Subscribe to see more
Valuation
Revenue	0 FY undefined	0 FY undefined
Sources	7	10

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