PaySense raises USD 5.3m in Series A led by Jungle Ventures with participation from Naspers and Nexus Ventures

India: PaySense, India’s fastest growing digital credit platform, today announced their Series A funding of $5.3 million. The round was led by Jungle Ventures with participation from Naspers Group and Nexus Venture Partners. The company had raised an earlier round of investment of $2.3 million led by Nexus Venture Partners and prominent global angels.

PaySense is a technology and data science company building new age financial products for Indian consumers. PaySense’s first product is a simple, fast and flexible credit platform that provides customers a variety of credit options for their needs. PaySense EMI is a personalized line of credit similar to a personal loan that can be used to make any purchase, offline or online, instantaneously by putting it on an affordable EMI plan. It is set-up and operated very easily and seamlessly using the Android app or website. One can use the full credit amount available at one time for a big purchase or flexibly use it like a string of multiple EMIs for various smaller purchases, as needed by the consumer.

The credit approval of the consumer is instant, and free. There is only a one- time, minimal documentation which is digital, easy and fast leveraging the ‘India stack’. PaySense customers love the hassle free process as they never need to wait for any bank loan or credit card.

PaySense process and the credit product is simple, transparent and honest. It is just one time documentation, which is almost paperless for most customers with Aadhaar.

Prashanth Ranganathan, Co-Founder and CEO of PaySense said, “India is a young country and lots of people are just starting off building their professional lives. They might not have a credit score and they might not have enrolled for a credit card yet! Access to credit is fundamental to unlocking opportunities of growth and improving oneself. Today access to convenient and flexible credit is limited to a few fortunate folks. With the explosion of data on individuals, better access and most importantly with our ability to make sense of these large volumes of data real-time, we can level the playing field in credit. Giving credit to folks who already have history is easy, our mission is to democratise credit by making it just as easy for folks without history and without paperwork.”

Amit Anand, Founder and Managing Partner, Jungle Ventures said: “We have patiently been looking at this space in India and feel very excited to eventually partner with the PaySense team and other investors. There are going to be a few mega companies being formed in this space and the PaySense team has demonstrated great understanding and traction on various aspects required to become a category leader here.

Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners, who led the company’s seed round investment in the summer of 2015, said: “A large segment of Indian consumers are credit-worthy but not being addressed by conventional players. We are excited to partner with PaySense in the company’s mission to leverage data science and technology to provide right credit products to these customers in a seamless, low-friction manner.“

Sayali Karanjkar, Co-Founder and COO, said, “With respect to credit, India is a severely under-served market. Our research indicates that there is a rising demand for short-term flexible credit across the middle class aspirational youth. People need ready access to short-term, flexible and quick credit solutions for a variety of needs that improve their life and satisfy their aspirations. We are building PaySense to become a trusted financial partner to our consumers, we don’t just want to serve them once, we want to become their go-to solution for all their financial needs.”

The availability of this solution is useful even for those customers who do not have a credit rating based on no prior history. PaySense believes that they should be respected as well for their education and employment and given a chance to take EMIs, get the products they want and start their credit history too.

With electronic documentation and e-KYC being the norm of the day, PaySense can extend credit to its customers within hours. Once the verification has happened for the first time, the platform offers an instant credit line to its customers with custom loan options, which they can avail of, anytime. The credit line will grow with good credit history and repayment behaviors.