Online lending startup PayMe India raises angel money

Noida-based fin-tech startup PayMe India, which offers loans to salaried employees, has raised $2 million (Rs 13 crore) in an angel round of funding from a bunch of Singapore-based angel investors, a company statement said.

Pramod Singhal, chief operating officer for Nokia, and Shashank Sharma, a regional executive at a multinational firm, were the lead investors from Singapore. The Indian investors included Alok Garodia, the chief financial officer of Chinese multinational tech company Lenovo; Rishi Bhasin, associate director at investment firm Darashaw & Co; and Rajiv Punater, director recruitment solutions firm Bayside Group, the statement added.

The investment round includes a line of credit from multiple non-banking financial companies and fresh cash, the press note said.

The company will use the funds to foster both capacity and market expansion, Mahesh Shukla, co-founder of PayMe India, said.

Founded in 2016 by Shukla and Sandeep Singh, PayMe offers lending support to salaried employees on short-term as well as long-term basis. As of now, the company relies on alternative data and information based on social media and mobile data for credit underwriting. However, PayMe claims to have built a proprietary underwing credit evaluation model to keep fraudulent applications and risk potential at bay. The company also provides loan advisory services to assist its customers to come out of financial distress.

“We have the right blend of business and technical expertise and we are self-sufficient in meeting the demands of the business which is growing by leaps and bounds. Our operational procedure is very much technical-intensive and where hybrid technology plays the key role to build our mobile app; the one single app supports Android as well as iOS listings,” Shukla said.

PayMe joins a growing list of fin-tech startups in the lending, payments and personal finance segments that have been raising funds.

Chennai-based Kaleidofin raised $2.8 million (Rs 18 crore) in a seed round led by Omidyar Network, earlier this month.

Last month, Bengaluru-based fintech startup Smart Coin had raised $2 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by an undisclosed Chinese venture capital firm.

Fintech startup Creditas Solutions Pvt. Ltd had also raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A funding round led by equity crowdfunding platform 1Crowd.

In March, Avail Finance raised $17.2 million (Rs 111 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by venture capital firm Matrix Partners.

In January, Pune-based online lending platform EarlySalary raised Rs 100 crore ($15.7 million) in a Series B funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures India.

In the same month, media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL) acquired a stake in a Mumbai-based online lending firm FinReq.