Zolve Innovations, which operates a neobank that aims to ease access to financial services for users traveling from India to the US or vice versa, on Wednesday said it has raised $40 million (Rs 300 crore) in a Series A funding round led by partners of DST Global.
The round also saw participation from Tiger Global, Alkeon Capital, as well as existing investors Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Post the funding round, the 10-month company is valued at $210 million (Rs 1,575 crore). To date, Zolve has raised $65 million.
The company said it will use the funding amount to rapidly scale the company’s financial services platform. The funds will also help speed the expansion of the service to more countries. Zolve is also looking to grow its partner network and recruit talent in the U.S. 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 incredible 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, said.
Zolve was founded in December 2020 by TaxiForSure founder Raghunandan G. An angel investor in several startups, Raghunandan sold his ride-hailing startup to cab aggregation major Ola for $200 million in early 2015.
On the basis of their home country credit score, Zolve provides immigrants - working professionals and students, bound to the U.S. - with access to FDIC-insured bank accounts, high-limit credit cards, and debit cards - without the need for an SSN (social security number) or U.S. credit history while they are still in their home countries.
The company aims to become a full-stack financial services provider with products focused on instant remittance, insurance, and loans in the pipeline.
Since launching in September 2021, the company said it has more than 70,000 customers from Australia, Canada, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom who have signed up for Zolve.
The new round of funding comes just 7 months after its seed round of $15 million (Rs 112.5 crore), which saw the participation of Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, among others.
Similar deals in the segment
In September, small and medium enterprise (SME)-focused neo-bank Open raised Rs 735 crore (roughly $100 million) as a part of its Series C round led by Singapore-based Temasek.
Brazil-based Nubank and others have led a $44 million Series B funding round in Mumbai and Bengaluru-headquartered in neobanking startup Jupiter.
Akudo, a learning-focused neobank for teenagers, on Monday said it has raised $4.2 million (around Rs 31 crore) in funding led by Y Combinator, JAFCO Asia, Incubate Fund India, and AET Fund.