Mumbai-based Fintech startup Bold Finance raises $1.5 mn in seed funding

Bold Finance, a fintech startup, raises $1.5 million in a seed round. With the help of existing investor Antler India, as well as several angel investors including Nitin Gupta of Uni Cards, Ishpreet Gandhi of Stride Ventures, Shashikant Dola of McKinsey & Company, Tushar Mehndiratta of Avail Finance, Vadiraj Kulkarni of ITC PSPD, and others, this round was led by Kae Capital.

Nikhil Jain and Durgesh Suthar, IIT Roorkee graduates with combined work experience at prestigious companies like ITC, McKinsey, and Flipkart, respectively, founded Mumbai-based Bold Finance in 2021.

When Bold Finance was founded, its goal was to increase the accessibility of credit for users in the lower and moderate-income tiers of tier-two and tier-three cities to provide financial freedom for the entire nation of Bharat. Gold loans are Bold Finance's initial product.

Nikhil Jain, co-founder, Bold Finance, said, “Gold loan is mostly a distress or a working capital loan, wherein customers need it urgently. In such a situation, ease of access in hyper-local neighbourhoods, longer operating hours, and low-interest rates are paramount to customers. Bold Finance is smartly placed to cater to such customers and deliver safe, fast and trusted loans in the market."

65% of the $130 billion gold loan business is now unorganized and is run by HNIs, pawnbrokers, money lenders, jewellers, etc. Due to excessive interest rates (>30%), a lack of documentation, and a lack of transparency, consumers endure poor user experiences in unorganized markets.

The software platform and operational layer that Bold Finance is developing will enable jewellers to collaborate with various banks to issue loans in a controlled manner and sustainably expand their businesses. These jewellery stores serve as Bold Finance locations. Customers gain from low loan rates, simple access to capital, transparency, and seamless mobile app repayments.

Bold Finance branches have much lower operating expenses than those of its competitors, which allows them to pass along these advantages to end clients in the form of reduced interest rates.

“We are building a distributed finance tech platform which allows us to scale to multiple branches while having robust de-risking mechanisms across the stakeholders such as partner branches, customers, logistics etc. by analysing multiple data points," Durgesh Suthar, co-founder, Bold Finance says.