Cross-border neobanking platform Vance operated by Vance Techlabs Pvt. Ltd, announced it has raised $5.8 million (Rs 46.8 crore ) in a seed funding round led by Hummingbird Ventures.
According to a statement issued by the fintech platform, the round also saw participation from Global Founders Capital, YCombinator, Soma Capital and seasoned angels such as Alan Rutledge and Gokul Rajaram.
The Bengaluru-based company plans to use the funds to develop its international banking vertical and go live in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the UK by December 2022. The startup plans to enter five countries and grow its 10-member team to 30 in the coming 6-months. It will also focus on building products like remittances, savings accounts, and investments.
Founded in 2021 by Stanford dropout Parth Garg, Vance started as a recurring revenue-based financing platform and later pivoted to a cross-border neobanking platform. Vance was a part of YCombinator’s Winter 2022 batch.
“Banking and payments have come leaps and bounds over the last decade, but when it comes to international transactions, we still run on archaic systems. It is time to rethink global banking from the ground up. With an increasing global population, a global bank is the need of the hour,” said Garg, founder and chief executive, Vance.
Vance was born out of Garg's personal experience when he moved to India 8 months ago and faced challenges in getting a credit card despite having a credit history in the US and the UAE. He currently manages accounts in 4 countries.
The company says it envisions a world where you don't need multiple bank accounts in multiple countries to be financially included in an ecosystem. It aims to build a borderless banking account that opens up realms of using banking products that are currently not possible.
“In Vance, we've seen a willingness to build a financial technology company. Parth and team question the status quo and are the right set of people to impact change for expats globally,” said Akshay Mehra, Asia lead, Hummingbird Ventures.
A slew of early-stage fintech startups dealing in cross-border payments has been attracting significant venture capital funding even as mature startups such as Paytm and Razorpay as well as global tech giants such as Google look to further tap into the growing opportunity.