Fintech startup offering gold loans to improve credit availability in Tier-2,3 cities raises $1.5 million in seed funding

• Kae Capital led the funding round in fintech startup Bold Finance.
• The round also saw participation from Bold Finance’s existing investor Antler India, along with a clutch of angel investors.
• Bold Finance has already opened over 50 branches in just seven months in the Mumbai suburbs.

Fintech startup Bold Finance on Friday said it had raised $1.5 million in a seed round led by Kae Capital. The round also saw participation from Bold Finance’s existing investor Antler India, along with angel investors Nitin Gupta (Uni Cards), Ishpreet Gandhi (Stride Ventures), Shashikant Dola (McKinsey & Company), Tushar Mehndiratta (Avail Finance), Vadiraj Kulkarni (CEO, ITC PSPD) and others.


Founded by two IIT Roorkee alumni, Nikhil Jain and Durgesh Suthar, Bold Finance has a vision to improve credit availability for users from the lower and middle-income segments of Tier-2 and Ttier-3 cities. Its first credit product is gold loans.


Currently, 65% of the $130 billion gold loan market is unorganised, leading to customers suffering due to high interest rates, absence of documentation and lack of transparency, the company said. Bold Finance has adopted a business model of placing itself between banks, jewellers and customers by building a tech platform that empowers jewellers to operate as Bold Finance branches.


The two-pronged benefits of this platform – jewellers work with multiple banks to dispense loans in a regulated manner and grow their business sustainably, while the customers benefit from low-interest rates, easy access to capital, transparency, and convenient repayments via mobile app, the company said.


“Gold loan is mostly a distress or a working capital loan, wherein customers need it urgently. In such a situation, ease of access in hyper-local neighbourhoods, longer operating hours, and low-interest rates are paramount to customers,” shared Jain, co-founder, Bold Finance.


Compared to its peers, Bold Finance also has significantly lower operating costs. In fact, the cost and time required to start a new branch are 60x lower than its competitors. As a result of its low operating cost and unique business model, Bold Finance opened over 50 branches in Mumbai suburbs in just 7 months, it said.


Sunitha Viswanathan, partner, Kae Capital said, “We believe that Bold’s approach of partnering with the jewellers breaks the trust barrier with the consumer and enables them to deepen the relationship. We are excited to partner with Bold as they build a customer-centric fintech platform for Bharat.”

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