slice Raises INR 165 Cr In Debt In FY21 The platform aims to achieve a gross transaction volume run rate of $1 billion in FY22 and grow member-base to 1 million
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Credit and payment startup slice on Monday informed that it has raised a cumulative debt of INR 165 crore in pandemic-struck FY21 from 18 leading financial institutions. This includes Northern Arc Capital Limited, Vivriti Capital Private Limited, AU Small Finance Bank, Incred Financial Services Limited, Pace Fincap Private Limited, Western Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd, and Innoven Capital India Pvt Ltd among others. Out of this, the company raised INR 126 crore in just the last five months of FY21.
Catering to India's youth, slice has over 300,000 members and 900,000 on the waitlist today, 70 per cent of them being young working professionals. The company has processed a transaction volume of over $250 million and plans to achieve a GTV run rate of $1 billion in FY22. With this, slice also plans to grow its member base by more than threefold to 1 million in the next 12 months.
"Last year was volatile, which makes it even more empowering for us to have such strong financial institutions show solidarity with our vision. The number of institutions investing in us has grown significantly in FY21 alone, a validation of our strategy of keeping the lowest NPAs in the industry. Our priority right now is to support the country in every way possible as we all collectively fight the second wave. We have all learned several lessons from the pandemic last year which will help us put our best foot forward and cater to our members' needs adeptly. Customer centricity and business agility is more important in today's times than ever before," remarked Rajan Bajaj, founder, and chief executive officer, slice.
In the last few quarters, slice has witnessed significant growth in terms of consumers and the size of the team. Despite the pandemic, the company grew by 125 per cent in 2020 and has recorded a 40-50 per cent increase in average customer spends. The company also plans to double its employee strength in 2021 with a major focus on tech, product and design.