Fintech startup offering gold loans to improve credit availability in Tier-2.3 cities raises $1.5M in seed funding

• Kae Capital led the round of financing in fintech startup Bold Finance.
• The round also saw participation from Bold Finance’s existing investor Antlers Indiatogether with a group of angel investors.
• Bold Finance has already opened more than 50 branches in the suburbs of Mumbai in just seven months.

Fintech startup Bold Finance said Friday it had raised $1.5 million in a seed round led by Kae Capital. The round also saw participation from Bold Finance’s existing investor Antler India, along with angel investors Nitin Gupta (Uni Cards), Ishpreet Gandhi (Stride Ventures), Shashikant Dola (McKinsey & Company), Tushar Mehndiratta (Avail Finance), Vadiraj Kulkarni (CEO, ITC PSPD) and others.

Founded by two IIT Roorkee alumni, Nikhil Jain and Durgesh Suthar, Bold Finance has a vision to improve credit availability for users from the lower and middle income segments of Tier-2 and Ttier-3 cities. The first credit product is: gold loans.

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Currently, 65% of the $130 billion gold loan market is disorganized, leading to clients suffering from high interest rates, lack of documentation and lack of transparency, the company said. Bold Finance has adopted a business model to place itself between banks, jewelers and customers by building a technical platform that enables jewelers to operate as Bold Finance affiliates.

The dual benefits of this platform: jewelers partner with multiple banks to provide loans in a regulated manner and grow their business sustainably while the customers benefit from low interest rates, easy access to capital, transparency and easy repayments via mobile app. the company said.

“Gold loan is usually an emergency or a working capital loan, where customers need it urgently. In such a situation, easy access in hyper-local neighborhoods, extended opening hours and low interest rates are paramount to clients,” said Jain, co-founder of Bold Finance.

Compared to its competitors, Bold Finance also has significantly lower operating costs. In fact, the cost and time required to start a new business is 60x less than the competitors. Due to its low operating costs and unique business model, Bold Finance opened more than 50 branches in the suburbs of Mumbai in just 7 months.

Sunitha Viswanathan, partner of Kae Capital said: “We believe that Bold’s approach to partnering with jewelers breaks the trust barrier with consumers and enables them to deepen the relationship. We are excited to partner with Bold in building a customer-centric fintech platform for Bharat.”

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