Fintech startup Fello has raised $4 million in its latest funding round led by US-based Courtside Ventures, with participation from, Entrepreneur First, Y Combinator, Kube Venture and Upsparks. Angel investors, Kunal Shah, (Cred), Lalit Keshre, (Groww), Charlie Songhurst and Alan Rutledge participated in this round.
The Bengaluru-based startup had raised $1 million in its seed round led by early-stage investor Entrepreneur First. It was also among the nine companies selected for the CIIE Fintech Inclusion Programme of 2021.
Fello will use the funding to develop gamified financial products, hiring, and user expansion in India's tier-I and tier-II cities.
Founded in 2021 by Y Combinator W22 graduates, Manish Maryada and Shourya Lala, Fello is a gamified savings platform that incentivizes users through gaming to save and grow their money with returns higher than their traditional savings accounts.
The company aims to onboard 5 million customers by the end of 2023 and penetrate India's underbanked population.
“Presently, we have a user base of over 500,000, and we aim to reach our target of 5 million users by December 2023,” said Manish Maryada, co-founder and CEO, Fello.
Fello’s other investors include prominent names like Acequia Capital and independent investors Ashneer Grover and Bala Parthasarathy.
According to startup intelligence platform Tracxn, fintech has emerged as one of the top-funded sectors in 2022, amidst a funding winter. Startups in the fintech sector raised $5.7 billion across 348 deals in 2022, staying behind consumer-related startups, including marketplaces, business-to-consumer, and e-commerce, which raised $20.4 billion across 746 deals in 2022, and the Enterprise applications sector, which includes startups in enterprise Software, SaaS, and HR tech platforms, which raised $7.2 billion across 644 deals in 2022.
