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Funding

Skills Caravan raises seed funding from angel investors

Delhi-based technology startup Skills Caravan has raised an undisclosed sum of seed funding from angel investors, including Abhishek Poddar, Country Head of Macquarie Group; Paras Berwala, Head of TMT and EDtech at Investec India; and Deep Bajaj, Co-founder of Sirona.

The SaaS B2B platform will use the funding towards expanding Skills Caravan’s operations in the US, according to Co-founder Sarita Chand.

Founded by Sarita Chand and Dinesh Chaudhary in 2022, the startup provides a Learning as a Service platform that uses AI to deliver individualised educational resources, optimising learning roadmaps for organisations.

Pepper Group to invest $150M to start a fintech in India

Consumer finance company Pepper Group has said it will invest $150 million over the next four years to establish a fintech in India under its Pepper Money brand. 

The fintech will be spearheaded by former FlexiLoans Co-founder Abhishek Kothari. With plans to launch in the second half of 2023, Pepper Money India will target the 15 crore households in Tier II and III cities.

“We are extremely confident about the Indian economy, which has been amongst the high growth performers in the recent years,” Mike Culhane, Group CEO of Pepper, said in a statement. “India has the potential to become one of the largest markets for us in the next 5 years. Abhishek’s fintech experience and deep understanding of the consumer will be instrumental in building the Pepper Money brand across India.”

Pepper Group has $21 billion in assets under management (AUM) of self-generated loans via its Pepper Money brand, and a further $55 billion in AUM of third-party loans under credit management via its Pepper Advantage brand, according to the company.

The group has an existing presence across Australia, UK, Europe, South Korea, Japan and South-East Asia, the company said, adding that the launch of Pepper Money India signifies a long-term commitment to the Indian market.

The firm aims to hire a 200+ team to deliver consumer finance products that embed a localised approach to the market. Pepper Money India also plans to build a network of strategic partnerships, including co-branded card partnerships and collaborations with co-lenders.

Other news

CouLoot opens first offline store in Mumbai

Coutloot, an online non-grocery retail aggregator, has expanded offline with its first store in Mumbai.

The company said it plans to open 50 stores by the end of this year in UP, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi—where it will standardise the existing small retail shops selling unbranded merchandise, which are already part of CoutLoot’s platform.

“This move is aimed at creating a large-scale impact both offline and online helping partner seller stores source better, sell faster, and market wider, ultimately growing into bigger scale businesses at the same time serving India’s mass consumer segment,” Jasmeet Thind, Co-founder of CoutLoot, said in a statement.

CoutLoot said that its decision to transform existing stores into branded outlets is part of its larger vision to provide end-to-end services to its partner network of stores creating a vertical technology company in the non grocery retail space. 

The company aims to provide services at each layer of the business through technology, ultimately creating a more seamless and connected ecosystem for retailers and customers alike.

Founded in 2016 by Jasmeet Thind and Mahima Kaul, Coutloot started as a platform to enable users to buy and sell pre-owned clothes, accessories, and shoe brands. In 2019, it pivoted to an ecommerce platform aimed to standardise the small fragmented retailers across the country with its tech stack. 

Punjab National Bank launches IVR-based UPI solution

Punjab National Bank (PNB) has introduced IVR-based UPI solution—UPI 123PAY, aligning with the Digital Payment Vision 2025.

“India’s large population resides in rural and semi-urban areas. Such population still relies on cash for their daily needs,” Atul Kumar Goel, MD and CEO of PNB, said in a statement. “To facilitate such people, who do not have access to smartphones or internet connectivity, we are delighted to introduce the functionality of UPI 123PAY.”

UPI has been accessible through smartphones or through Unstructured Supplementary Service data (USSD) service and is dependent on good internet connectivity. The UPI 123PAY solution would extend the functionality and facilitate the feature to any phone users and those in low internet connectivity zones to perform UPI transactions.