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Fintech start-up Zolve has raised ₹300 crore ($40 million) Series A funding from partners of DST Global along with participation of Tiger Global, Alkeon Capital, as well as existing investors like Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The funding round has raised Zolve’s valuation to ₹1,575 crore. The fresh funds will be used to scale the company’s financial services platform, expand product suite and ramp up hiring and technology. So far, the company has raised a total of $55 million across two funding rounds.
On the basis of their home country credit score, Zolve provides immigrants — working professionals and students, bound to the US — access to FDIC-insured bank accounts, high-limit credit cards, and debit cards, without the need for an SSN (social security number) or US credit history. Zolve plans to become a full-stack financial services provider with products focused on instant remittance, insurance, and loans in the pipeline.
More than 70,000 customers from Australia, Canada, Germany, India and the UK, among others, are said to have signed up for Zolve. The new round of funding comes just seven months after the company’s seed round of $15 million, which saw the participation of Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and a host of other marquee investors.
With the additional funds, Zolve intends to enhance the user experience for global citizens, allowing them to open their US accounts in minutes. The funds will help speed the expansion of the service to more countries, increasing the number of people who are able to benefit from Zolve. Further, Zolve is looking to grow its partner network and recruit stellar talent in the US and India to launch more products and open access to more countries.
“While we intended to start with a small cohort of 500 users, we were oversubscribed by almost 90x from working professionals and students within the first few weeks. This traction has been far beyond what we had envisioned and clearly demonstrates that there is a tangible need for a service that provides global citizens equitable access to financial products,” said Raghunandan G, CEO and Founder of Zolve.
Before Zolve, Raghunandan has built taxi aggregator TaxiForSure, which was sold to Ola Cabs in 2015 for $200 million. He is also an angel investor in over 50 start-ups including Vedantu, Bounce and Ninjacart.