Financing platform GetVantage Tech Pvt. Ltd said on Tuesday it has raised funding from a clutch of investors including Venture Catalysts and Samyakth Capital.
The startup also received investments from Astir Ventures and Ashok Goel Family Office, it said in a statement.
A few individual investors including MSwipe founder Manish Patel, BookMyShow finance head Mitesh Shah, Innoven Capital directors Punit Shah and Ankit Agarwal also invested.
GetVantage didn’t disclose the amount it raised.
Mumbai-based GetVantage was founded by Bhavik Vasa, who was a former chief growth officer of financial services firm EbixCash. The company is a revenue-based financing platform that provides growth capital to digital brands without founders having to dilute equity.
“We believe revenue-based financing can be a gamechanger for the Indian startup and digital enterprise ecosystem," said Vasa, who is also CEO at GetVantage.
The firm’s model, he said, encourages companies to focus on solving problems, generating revenues, growing sustainably and staying true to their mission.
GetVantage offers loans in the range of Rs 20 lakh and Rs 2 crore at no interest and no hidden fees while charging one flat fee that is recovered as small, flexible shares of future revenues.
The alternative funding model for digital brands is already gaining significant traction in foreign markets, with firms like Clearbanc, Lighter Capital, and RevUp Capital, the statement noted.
This is not Vasa's first stint as a founder. He had co-founded payments company Radical Payments Solutions in 2009, which was acqui-hired by ItzCash in August 2011 and he worked with ItzCash since then. After six years, software firm Ebix Inc. acquired a majority stake in ItzCash for $120 million (Rs 778 crore). Post the acquisition in 2017, Vasa took up the role of chief growth officer at EbixCash and the following year he left the company.
Other founding team members of GetVatage are Akash Mehta (ex-Capital18, ex-Brand Capital) and Amit Srivastava (ex-Startupbootcamp, ex-AquaPay).
Revenue-based financing
Revenue-based financing (RBF) is an alternative investment model wherein a company raises capital from an investor based on a data-driven projection of its future revenues. RBF is non-equity financing, meaning the model doesn’t require founders to dilute equity and/ or control in their business.
Neither does it ask founders to put up collateral or personal guarantees. The investor recovers the amount invested as a share of the business’ future revenues. That amount typically includes the principal amount plus a flat fee.
Investors
Venture Catalysts, a startup incubator and accelerator, was set up in December 2015 by Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain. It says its network has cumulatively invested Rs 273.4 crore since its inception, and that it has facilitated a total of over Rs 1,000 crore for 171 startups. It usually invests between $250,000 and $1 million in early-stage startups.
Last year, its network of high-net-worth individual investors struck 60 investment deals and 27 exit transactions in 2019.
Samyakth Capital is a hybrid growth fund that invests into emerging asset class. Founded in 2017, Samyakth Capital currently has 15 companies in its portfolio including Rentomojo, Bharat Pe, Pee Safe, Koinex, Liquiloans, and ClearDekho.