Online gold loan company Rupeek has raised $60 million in two separate funding rounds. Flipkart c-founder Binny Bansal, Silicon Valley based global venture capital firm, GGV Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, KB Investments Co (KBIC), Tanglin Venture Partners, Sequoia India and Accel Partners participated in these rounds.
With India being the largest importer of gold Rupeek is looking to monetize India’s idle gold and help the country achieve the $5 trillion economy by 2025.
Rupeek, founded in 2015, offers ‘doorstep gold loans’ using technology and is currently disbursing gold loans at an annual run rate of more than $200 million.
“We have seen a massive transformation in the fintech sector and potential opportunities to partner with banks. Our plan is to scale existing and newer channels for gold monetization. We will use the fresh funds to invest in technology, customer acquisition and work towards improving the accessibility of credit in the country,” Sumit Maniyar, Chief Executive Officer, Rupeek Fintech said in a statement.
Rupeek now has a presence in ten cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi, Jaipur, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Coimbatore and Pune. Rupeek’s goal is to increase its customer base from 1 lakh to 1 million and provide accessibility of credit to a billion Indians by 2022 across 100 cities through its asset-based offerings.
Speaking on the investment, Binny Bansal, Co-Founder, Flipkart said, "I am really excited about how Rupeek is opening up access to formal credit for a large base of users. Their strong customer proposition and approach of partnering with banks is truly a game changer for the unorganized gold loans space in India."
GGV capital’s Managing Partner Hans Tung, who is also seven-time Forbes Midas Lister and popularly known as the 'man with the Midas Touch’ has now joined Rupeek as a board of director.
“For India’s middle-class households, gold has long been a favorite way to save and invest. Rather than letting it sit idle, Rupeek has turned a family’s dormant asset into an easy way to get a loan at affordable rates to grow their small business or pay for emergency needs. With a marketplace of agents, Rupeek enables big, Indian banks to offer competitive gold loan products at the privacy of customer’s homes by sending agents to people’s homes and depositing the gold at the nearest branch of the partner bank that offered the loan. We are impressed by the deep partnerships that Sumit and the team forged with banks in India and hope that those partnerships could be leveraged to launch more innovative and localized financial products for the middle class of India. We are excited to be a partner in Rupeek’s journey by sharing our global expertise in scaling local champions to make a positive impact,” he said in a statement.