BankSathi raises $4m as Pre-series A round

By Leandra Monteiro

Bangalore-based social e-commerce platform BankSathi has raised $4 million in funding from Kotak Securities, Lets Venture, We Founder Circle, Hem Securities and IPV (Inflection Point Ventures).

The company has also received funding from Recur Club, Liquiloans, Sunil Singhania (Abakkus), Kunal Shah (CRED), Dr Ritesh Malik (Innov8), Kailash Biyani (Asian Markets), Mukul Rastogi & Bhaswat Agarwal (ClassPlus), Varun Alagh (MamaEarth), Sameer Rastogi (India Juris), Manish Dabkara (EKI Energy), and Mukund Modi (MS Fincap).

The funds will be used to invest in high-caliber employees across all the company’s operations and to accelerate the development of new products and technology. In addition, the organisation will invest resources toward growing both its agent network and geographic reach into new regions.

Jitendra Dhaka, Founder & CEO said, “People generally rely on their networks for recommendations, particularly when it comes to significant financial services. As a result, our distribution network of vetted agents provides much-needed security to customers. we’re keen to make a big contribution in the prime minister’s mission ‘Develop India by 2047’ by increasing financial penetration through our tech-empowered financial advisors. With this funding, we will be able to expand product, technology, and distribution network at a faster pace.”

Jaideep Hansraj, MD & CEO, Kotak Securities Limited said, “Today small and mid-sized financial advisors/micro-entrepreneurs are not able to directly work with financial institutions. BankSathi is enabling these micro-entrepreneurs to sell & earn extra income through selling financial products online and making themselves financially independent & educated.”

The start-up also employed top-level executives in the last three months, and they plan to add more as they pursue future expansion and overcome the language barrier that impedes financial inclusion, by adding three more languages to the existing five languages in its application.