Indian Embedded FinTech Startup Niro Closes $3.5M Seed Funding

Embedded FinTech startup Niro raised $3.5 million in a seed funding round led by Elevar Equity with participation from angel investors Kunal Shah, Nitin Gupta, Bala Parthasarathy, the Patni Family Office, R. Ramaraj and Aseem Dhru, according to reports.

Recently launched by Aditya Kumar, chief executive officer, and Sankalp Mathur, who serves as chief risk officer, the FinTech startup plans to disrupt India’s consumer lending landscape by making embedded consumer credit products easily accessible to the country’s 624 million internet users.

See also: Embedded Finance Tops B2B Tech Funding

“At the core of large-scale transformations lies a single innovation. We believe that embedded finance is one such innovation, and Niro aims to leverage the power of embedded finance to unlock potential for all customer-facing digital platforms to become consumer lending FinTechs,” Kumar said in a statement. “This will enable them to offer their consumers bespoke and competitive financial products combined with a frictionless all-in-one platform experience.”

Niro said it plans to enable online consumer brands to offer credit products that are seamlessly integrated and have measurable impact that also boosts user experience and engagement.

Read more: APIs Hold Promise for B2Bs to Embed BaaS

Mathur said there is extensive growth opportunity in the embedded finance space and Niro believes this is an “opportunity to redefine distribution for financial services entirely” and opens up a new role for providers of financial services.

Jyotsna Krishnan, managing partner, Elevar Equity, said the firm only makes two or three investments a year and generally seeks out founders who have a “deep focus on and understanding of the end customer” and can develop “differentiated, scalable distribution models.”

Krishnan added that Niro’s founders have a personal and professional understanding of the FinTech lending space and the related obstacles and challenges, but also had the “clarity to target a financially underserved market through a differentiated strategy instantly resonated with us.”