Fintech platform WeRize raises $8M in Series A round led by 3one4 Capital, Kalaari, others

Bengaluru-based fintech startup WeRize has raised $8 million in Series A funding round led by 3one4 Capital, Kalaari Capital, Picus Capital, and Orios Venture Partners. Following the current round, WeRize's funding amount now stands at $10.25 million.

Werize will use the raised capital to increase expenditures in technology, data science, and product development, according to the statement.

Through a social distribution network, WeRize provides credit cards and savings products in over 1,000 cities including Tirupur, Coimbatore, Surat, Aurangabad, and Amritsar.

The startup claims to serve consumers in over 1,000 cities and towns, with aspirations to expand its social distribution to over 4000 communities in the next two years. Over 50,000 freelance financial consultants in India are expected to be onboarded by the organization.

“We are creating a new category in the Indian financial services space; a socially distributed full-stack financial services platform for 4000 small towns of India. The full-stack approach of owning both the product and the distribution gives us unique insights about our customer segment that becomes an unbeatable competitive advantage," said Vishal Chopra and Himanshu Gupta, co-founders, WeRize, in a joint statement.

WeRize is a new category-socially distributed full-stack financial services platform for families in small-town India, founded by ex-LendingKart executives Vishal Chopra and Himanshu Gupta in 2019.

So far, the platform has collected over 1 billion data points from 500k families in 1000 cities due to its social distribution. It has created tailored credit, group insurance, and savings products based on these data points to meet the specific needs of these families.

The startup was able to develop a sustainable business serving tiny towns in India thanks to the social distribution strategy, which resulted in much cheaper customer acquisition costs (no branches or workers in these small cities).

WeRize is presently profitable in terms of operations and expects to be profitable in terms of EBITDA by early 2022.

“We strongly believe that their approach of designing financial products focused on families along with distributing through a social model is the only way to win this huge market. So, we are very excited to support them as they scale WeRize out and build more innovative products for small-town India,” said Anurag Ramdasan, partner, 3one4 Capital.

In the first quarter of 2021, fintech entrepreneurs raised a record $22.8 billion, and WeRize is the latest addition to the country's fintech investment frenzy. Robinhood, an investment app, has raised the most money with $3400 million, followed by NEA, Sequoia, and Ribbit Capital, and Stripe, Klarna, and Paradigm.

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