India’s unicorn-creation machine had appeared to have been on leave the last couple of years, but it’s now sputtering back into action.
Fintech startup Moneyview has become India’s latest unicorn. Moneyview’s board has approved a special resolution to raise Rs 38.64 crore in a fresh funding round. The startup’s post-allotment valuation now stands at Rs 10,086 crore, or $1.2 billion. This makes Moneyview India’s sixth unicorn of 2024 after Krutrim, Perfios, Porter, Rapido, and Ather.
Moneyview has largely kept itself under the radar as it has reached the $1 billion milestone. The company was founded in 2014 by seasoned executives Puneet Aggarwal and Sanjay Aggarwal. Puneet Aggarwal had degrees from IIT Delhi and Purdue, and had worked with companies including Mckinsey, Capital One and Google, where he’d worked on growing Google Pay. Sanjay Aggarwal had graduated from IIT Delhi in 1993, and had worked with Appian Communications and Yahoo, before founding an ed-tech company named Minglebox. In 2014, the duo got together and founded Moneyview, which was intended to be a personal financial management solution.
But in 2016, Moneyview pivoted, and entered the credit lending space. Moneyview offers personal loans ranging from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10 lakh, and aims to disburse them within 24 hours without any paperwork. It also provides credit cards and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options, catering especially to the underserved segments of the population who may lack traditional credit histories. The platform also offers credit cards, home loans, an FD selection platform, and even a gold program called Moneyview Gold.
Moneyview now boasts of more than 45 million app downloads. It has disbursed Rs. 12,000 crore of loans in 19,000 locations across the country. The company leverages advanced technology, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to assess creditworthiness — by collecting between 100 and 1,000 data points from user applications, the platform can create customized loan products based on individual risk profiles and affordability. Moneyview is also looking to build its brand, and has signed on Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor to promote its products.
Most impressively, Moneyview is profitable. In FY23, the company had reported revenue of Rs. 577 crore, and its profit was a cool Rs. 163 crore. Until a few years ago, profitable startups had been few and far between in India, but more and more Indian unicorns are entering the black — startups including Dream11, PhysicsWallah, Infra.Market, Urban Company and OfBusiness have all reported profits, while more mature companies like Zomato are also generating money. And with companies like Moneyview being profitable before having even reached the $1 billion milestone, they can expect to really get start printing cash when they scale into becoming even bigger enterprises.