Niyo raises $100 million in fresh funding led by Accel, Lightrock

The round also saw participation from Beams Fintech Fund. Existing investors Prime Venture Partners, JS Capital also participated in this round.

According to the company, it will use the proceeds from the current round to launch new products in the lending as well as insurance space. It is also expected to use the funding for brand building, inorganic acquisitions and to bolster its team strength.

The company is looking to double its headcount by the end of 2022. It currently has an employee base of 500 members, at present.

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Founded in 2015, Niyo offers digital savings accounts as well as wealth management services to customers in partnership with banks and other financial institutions. It also issues travel cards in partnership with SBM and DCB Bank for international remittance. The company also provides zero-balance prepaid cards for blue-collar workers.

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“We are looking to make our lending product live next month, which will revolve around personal loans, as well as buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offerings. Niyo will look at making 2-3 acquisitions this year, to help improve our capabilities around underwriting and collection. In the second half of the year, we will also look to add on to our insurance portfolio and introduce general, car and travel insurance products,” said Vinay Bagri, chief executive officer, and cofounder, Niyo Solutions in an interaction with ET.

At present, Niyo has a base of 4 million users. It claims to be adding close to 10,000 new users on a daily basis, and is aiming towards a 30 million user base, over the next four years.

Last year, the company had
acquired Bengaluru-based startup Index to boost its wealth management platform. It had also acquired mutual fund startup Goalwise in July 2020. Currently, Niyo allows users to invest in mutual funds, domestic stocks and pushes for goal-based investing.

“We are excited to back the fastest growing neo-bank in India, Niyo. Vinay, Viren and team have built a fantastic product with a clear value prop for customers which is reflected in their phenomenal growth. We look forward to partnering with Niyo in changing the way India banks,” said Anand Daniel, partner at Accel.

Niyo also partners with corporates and distributes its products to their employees. It has a network of over 7000 corporate partners at present.

“We are extremely excited about the potential of Niyo. Neobanks are an emerging asset class in India and believe that the quality of Niyo’s team, customer understanding and technology stack will enable them to emerge as the leader of the space,” said Ashish Garg, principal at Lighrock India.

Niyo, at present, competes with other neo-banking platforms including Jupiter, IndMoney and Open.

In January, this year,
IndMoney had raised $75 million as a part of its ongoing funding round, led by Steadview Capital, Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group. The round had valued IndMoney at $640 million. Jupiter, started by fintech veteran Jitendra Gupta, also
raised $45 million in August, last year.

Last year, in October, Open
raised $100 million in a funding round led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, along with participation from other new investors like tech major Google, card operator Visa and Japan’s SBI Investment.

ET had also reported on December 23, that
Open was in talks to close a fresh funding round of $100 million – $150 million, at a valuation of $1 billion to $1.3 billion.