Bengaluru: City-based digital banking start-p NiYO Solutions has raised $35 million in AaSeries B funding round from Horizons Ventures, Tencent and existing investor JS Capital, the company said on Tuesday.
NiYO is founded by banking veteran Vinay Bagri and technology veteran Virender Bisht. NiYO had previously raised $14 million in funding rounds led by Prime Venture Partners. After the current round, the total amount of fund raised by NiYO stands at around $49 million.
The latest round of funding, according to the company, will be used to accelerate the development and rollout of product offerings, to amplify distribution and marketing and explore expansion into international markets. NiYO claims to serve around 1 million users, and is targeting 5 million users in next three years. Its NiYO Bharat Mobile App, for example, is available in eight languages and is speech-enabled. NiYO is also betting big on the international travel market with its forex solution, NiYO Global Card.
According to NiYO co-founder and CEO, Vinay Bagri, "With this fresh round of funding, we aim to fortify our service suite and further accelerate our growth." Sanjay Swamy, Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners, said, "From our first meeting with Vinay and Viren, we were excited by the vision of bringing ‘neo-banking’ experience to the blue collar segment — helping drive the benefits of digitization, financial inclusion and to the hard-working masses in India."
NiYO aims to create a technology-enabled and value-added product and service offering layer over the existing banking infrastructure, to offer a comprehensive digital banking proposition to its retail and SME customer base. This is in line with the global mega trend of ‘open or neo banking’.
