Rupifi Raises $4.1 Mn In Pre-Series A Round Led By Quona Capital The funding will be used to expand the company's product offerings, partnerships and to scale its team
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Buy now, pay flexibly (BNPF) embedded finance platform Rupifi for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on Friday announced to have raised $4.1 million in a pre-Series A round led by Quona Capital, with participation from Ankur Capital and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal.
"We've all become used to the Buy Now, Pay Laters (BNPLs) of the world like Klarna and Affirm," said Anubhav Jain, co-founder, and chief executive officer, Rupifi. "But MSMEs don't need lengthy installment plans, they need access to small loans/credit lines they can pay back at variable time periods, based on their resale of the items they buy. For many, this may be as quick as "buy now, pay next week' or "buy now, pay next day'—but when they don't have access to credit for even the shortest of terms, those MSMEs fail to grow. Rupifi provides an agile platform that solves this dilemma for the entire ecosystem, from B2B anchors to lenders. Digital B2B transactions are growing at an unprecedented pace and we are here to provide the much-needed pillar of support in the form of flexible credit."
The funding will be used to expand the platform's product offerings, partnerships and to scale its team.
"There is significant policy and digital infrastructure push towards enabling transaction-linked digital credit solutions with the Open Credit Enablement Network and Account Aggregator regimes," shared Ganesh Rengaswamy, co-founder and managing partner, Quona Capital, which led the round. "Rupifi's solution rides on several digital rails including OCEN, B2B commerce, and card issuance to lower risk while serving high-frequency, low-ticket-size transactions that enable MSMEs to expand and grow. The innovation of Buy Now, Pay Flexibly has long been needed in this market, and we are excited to back the Rupifi team as they reimagine MSME commerce in India."
Launched in 2020 by co-founders Anubhav Jain, Ankit Singh, and Jawaid Iqbal, the company addresses India's critical credit gap of over $330 billion, which has historically been driven by the inability of traditional lenders to navigate and integrate digital lending structures needed to reach small ticket customers and MSMEs.
"We see Rupifi's solutions, which blend a nuanced understanding of MSMEs' credit needs with tech-driven customer engagement and leverage of data from partner platforms, opening up a large market segment – aligning with our thesis on the vast opportunity in the next billion users," shared Krishnan Neelakantan, managing partner, Ankur Capital. "The Rupifi team brings in complementary skills around credit, technology, and scaling to build a valuable business."
