Fintech startup Vegapay, a digital lending and card management platform has raised $1.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Eximius Ventures along with DSP HMK, Capri Global, Upsparks Capital, MGA Ventures, Climber Capital, Arun Venkatachalam (Murugappa Group), Pratekk Agarwaal (General Partner @ GrowthCap Ventures) & a host of angel investors.
Vegapay was co-founded in October 2022 by senior fintech experts and banking industry veterans, Gaurav Mittal (Ex-Zeta), Himanshu Agrawal (Ex-Amazon), Puneet Sharma (Ex-BharatPe) and Abhinav Garg (Ex-Podeum)
Vegapay is building a lending tech stack and card management system that enables regulated entities as well as fintechs to issue and further increase card as well as lending penetration in India. Today, card management technology is archaic in nature and has a monolithic architecture making it difficult for issuers and co-brand partners to issue flexible card and lending products. Vegapay aims to create a micro service driven card and lending issuance stack that would enable issuers to seamlessly integrate and issue lending products that can cater to the unique needs of consumer cohorts.
Digital lending is one of the fastest-growing fintech segments in India. In fact, it has grown exponentially from USD 9 Bn to USD 110 Billion from 2012 to 2019, and is further expected to reach ~USD 350 Billion by the end of 2023 (39.4% CAGR), by when the total retail and microlending AUM will be USD 1.5 Trillion.
Further, given rapid digital adoption in the country and the RBI’s positive stance towards issuance of credit, we are on the verge of a Digital Lending explosion.
Gaurav Mittal, Co-founder & CEO of Vegapay, stated “The banks and the fintech players take months to launch new financial products like credit cards & lending offerings. However, we can help them reduce the time taken to bring products to the market by 90%. This would enable our partners to launch their products in just one week. Our mission is to assist our partners in achieving the USD 1.5 Trillion AUM by providing customised digital lending solutions at an unprecedented speed.”
Vegapay intends to use the funding to develop their technology further to make frontline adoption easier for institutions and non-institutions. Their vision is to liberate FIs and Fintechs from every technical barrier which hinders running a lending program. Additionally, they aim to create an omni-channel lending solution, which will help institutions customise the type of product they choose to offer such as co-lending, secured credit, unsecured credit, and more.
Pearl Agarwal, Founder & Managing Director of Eximius Ventures said, “Credit card products have historically been targeted at particular demographics in Tier I cities, with the focus of attaining high income customers. As per an RBI report, 65% of the credit card penetration is present in Tier I cities. Comparatively, the penetration in Tier II and III cities has been significantly lower. However, new businesses have started emerging in a rapid manner within Tier II and III cities. To service this growing audience, Vegapay has devised an ingenious plan to provide a credit card management stack and lending solutions to BFSI and fintech players to issue customizable products for this cohort.”
About Vegapay
At Vegapay, our goal is to provide a fair opportunity for both traditional and non-traditional financial institutions to offer modern financial services to everyone. We empower our clients to Go To Market within a week, which traditionally took them a couple of months. We specialize in various domains, including credit cards, Loan Origination Systems (LOS), Loan Management Systems (LMS), digital wallets and prepaid cards.
About Eximius Ventures
Eximius Ventures is a pre-seed stage fund based in Delhi NCR and Bangalore. We strive to support exceptional operators building groundbreaking solutions for India. We take a thesis-driven approach investing across FinTech, Healthcare, Media/Entertainment, and Gaming. We typically invest up to $500k in pre-product and early traction startups, and have reserved a significant portion of our fund for follow-on rounds. We understand the importance of agility in the fast-paced startup ecosystem, and have built an efficient and transparent decision-making process to provide founders with the capital without unnecessary delays.
In addition to capital infusion, we offer comprehensive support to our portfolio companies. This support includes assistance in follow-on fundraising, strategic hiring, access to a global network, and fostering strategic partnerships. Our distinguished portfolio boasts remarkable startups such as Jar, Eka.care, Stan, and Skydo, which have not only attracted follow-on investments from renowned firms like Tiger Global, Hummingbird, General Catalyst, and Elevation but have also achieved notable success in their respective industries.
