Rupifi Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates a software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm focussed on financial products for small and medium enterprises in India and Southeast Asia, has raised capital as part of its pre-seed funding round.
BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover, Cred and Freecharge founder Kunal Shah, Livspace founder Ramakant Sharma were the angel investors in the round
Seed investors including Better Capital and AngelList Syndicate Cloud Capital also took part in funding the round, Anubhav Jain, co-founder at Rupifi, said.
The Bengaluru-based company said it will use the funds to enhance its technological infrastructure and for lending capital.
The company didn’t disclose the amount it raised.
VCCircle has reached out to the company on the details of this pre-seed funding round and will update this report accordingly.
Rupifi was set up earlier this year by Jain, Ankit Singh and Jawaid Iqbal. Jain had previously co-founded financial technology startup Qbera, while Singh had co-founded Truckmandi. Iqbal, meanwhile, has worked with companies such as Google.
The company – whose platform is currently in beta – says it focussed on addressing the credit needs of small businesses. It partners with aggregators and connects them with lenders. Credit is then issued to businesses that use these aggregators to sell their products and services.
Rupifi says it generates revenue by earning a commission from every deal done through its platform, and that it is also ready to take around 5% of the loans issued to small businesses on its books. This will help the company gain exposure to credit underwriting and also provide it a revenue stream through interest payments.
It cites companies such as Open, Indifi and Capital Float as its peers in the space.
The SaaS firm says it has partnered with two non-banking financial companies on the lending side, and aggregators such as Shuttl and Dressfolk on the supply side.
Deals in the SaaS and fintech segment
The bet on Rupifi is yet another commitment to startups operating in the fast-diversifying fintech and SaaS spaces. Startups are using technology stacks to address gaps within traditional ecosystems and introduce new products and services to traditionally underserved customer segments.
In the SaaS space, business-to-business e-commerce startup Udaan in February invested around Rs 14 crore (around $1.94 million) in the restaurant management platform PetPooja. That month, fleet management and analytics startup raised $2.8 million (about Rs 20 crore) in a Series A round led by the Singapore-based Beenext Opportunity Fund.
In the fintech segment, teenager-focussed payments service Fampay Solutions raised $4.7 million (around Rs 34.6 crore) in seed funding from institutional and angel investors including Y Combinator, Venture Highway, Sequoia India, Kunal Shah and Amrish Rau.
Also this month, Karbon Card raised $2 million (Rs 14.8 crore) in seed funding from investors including Shah, Rau and Jupiter founder Jitendra Gupta.