ZestMoney

https://www.zestmoney.in/

About

ZestMoney is the largest and fastest growing consumer lending fintech company in India founded by Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma and Ashish Anantharaman in 2015. ZestMoney is built as a platform that can meaningfully improve the lives of more than 300 million households in the country, who currently have no access to credit cards or any other formal financing options because of insufficient credit history. ZestMoney’s unique platform uses mobile technology, digital banking and Artificial Intelligence to make life more affordable to millions of Indian consumers.

Startup Story

a startup that helps consumers with no credit history get loans to buy online.The round is led by Quona Capital,  a stealthy Washington-based fund that invests in emerging market fintech and has an office in India. Others participating included new backer Reinventure, an Australian fund which includes Coinbase  among its fintech portfolio, as well as returning investors Ribbit Capital,  Omidyar Network  and Naspers -owned PayU. The round takes ZestMoney to $42 million to date, it previously raised a $13.4 million ‘Series A2’ led by Chinese phone giant Xiaomi last August.

ZestMoney was founded in 2015 by Lizzie Chapman  (its CEO), Priya Sharma (CFO/COO) and Ashish Anantharaman (CTO). The trio — pictured at the top — met working at Wonga after Chapman moved to India from the UK to head up the controversial pay-day loan company’s local business. That venture ended up falling through and the rest is history, as they say.

Unlike Wonga and its ilk, ZestMoney is very much a consumer-centric loans company. That’s to say that it works with consumers who have no credit card, limited credit history and often very little assessable data, to help them build a profile and become ‘credit-worthy.’ That typically begins with small loans, which grow as a customer repays successfully.

The startup has partnered with over 800 merchants, including Flipkart  and Amazon, to offer financing options at point-of-sale. That helps retailers close out transactions whilst enabling consumers to buy medium-to-large ticket items, which typically include electronics, education and learning costs or vacations. Most of its transactions happen online, but Xiaomi is a major partner helping ZestMoney’s offline push.

Small loans don’t generate a return that makes the hassle worthwhile for banks, but that’s where startups like ZestMoney come in. It aggregates the smaller customers and manages the details, making it an attractive partner at scale for banks — and that’s another stakeholder that the startup works with.

All in all, the approach runs in stark contrast to the ratchety terms that Wonga and others force on consumers who use their credit services.

As Chapman told us last year: “New age fintech is much more optimistic… the thesis is ‘Behave well and do good things and you’ll get cheaper pricing.'”

“ZestMoney and Quona’s partnership is very symbiotic given the shared values of addressing big challenges in emerging markets fintech, market leadership through responsible high growth, and delivering financial accessibility to vastly underserved consumers,” he said in a statement

Quona Capital co-founder and managing partner Ganesh Rengaswamy echoed Chapman’s belief that there is still plenty of growth opportunity in India.

Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44zfATR03oE

Revenue

The company plans to strengthen its technology and data science capabilities as well as expand use cases for the core ZestMoney Affordability Product.

Bengaluru-based digital lending startup ZestMoney has raised $13.4 Mn in extended Series A round of funding led by Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. Existing investors PayU, Ribbit Capital and Omidyar Network also participated in the round.

Ceo

Lizzie Chapman is the co-founder and CEO of ZestMoney, FinTech startup of 2017. Zestmoney is India's largest digital lending platform that introduced the concept of cardless EMI to make life more affordable in India.