‘$20M in funding, $200M in loan disbursements, 30 partnerships & 4.5 years later, we’ve had to shut down Niro’: Startup founder

Fintech startup Niro has officially shut its business after four and a half years, founder Aditya Kumar announced in a social media post.

The closure comes despite the firm having raised around $20 million from investors, including Elevar Equity, GMO Venture Partners, Rebright Partners, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance VC, and Innoven Capital.

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About Niro

Founded in 2021 by Aditya Kumar and Sankalp Mathur, Niro was a B2B2C platform for consumer internet companies to become consumer finance enablers by offering loans.

The startup offered loans between Rs 50,000 and Rs 7 lakh for a tenure of 6 to 72 months with interest rates ranging from 12% to 28%.

According to the company, it built $100 million in assets under management (AUM) in just over 24 months and reached 170 million users at its peak.

“$20 million in funding, $200 million in loan disbursements, 30 partnerships and 4.5 years later - we’ve had to shut down Niro,” Kumar announced on LinkedIn.

Regulatory pressure, credit deterioration, and limited capital forced the company to shut its shop. Niro’s model linked consumer platforms with financial institutions, but tightening lending and risk regulations created a volatile environment.

“As a first-mover that saw scale quickly, I did not see this coming. We had done impossible: hired incredible teams, raised high-quality, patient capital, all while convincing large consumer internet platforms and industry leading lenders to work with us to unlock value at scale,” Kumar shared. “We built $100mn in AUM in just over 24 months from launch and saw over 170 million users flow through Niro at peak.”

According to TheKredible, Niro recorded Rs 7.86 crore in revenue in FY24, a sharp decline of 59% from Rs 19.09 crore in FY23. The company’s net loss reached Rs 48.7 crore in FY24, compared to Rs 36.9 crore in FY23. Its FY25 report has yet to come.

“Looking back, I would do it all over again,” co-founder Aditya Kumar said. “Niro was in the right place, at the right time, with the right backing. Financial institutions lack proprietary distribution and differentiate data for underwriting, which fundamentally makes their distribution low quality and expensive, and underwriting commoditised,” he added.

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