Bengaluru-based fintech startup Pocketly has raised $3 Million in a pre-Series A funding round. The round was led by Dholakia Ventures. In addition, angel investors Kunal Shah of CRED, Apurva Parekh, ED of Pidilite; Siddharth Somaiya, founder and CEO of Organic Riot and Aaryaman Vir Shah, cofounder of Prophetic Ventures, also participated in the round.

As per the report, the raised funding is a mixture of both debt and equity, with $2 million in debt and $1 million in equity. 

What is Pocketly?

Pocketly is a platform that offers a line of credit solutions, targeting students and growing professionals at the beginning of their journey path. Generally, Pocketly provides credit to the students of colleges via a Mobile app. The app also charges interest on the loan that is extended from its credit line over and above the usual interest charged by the lenders. 

The company was founded in 2019 by Navdeesh Ahuja. Currently, it owes 700K users but initially had around 100K users.

Right now, the startup has set its targets to expand its scale of disbursement from Rs. 2.5 Bn to Rs. 10 Bn within the next 12 months. Further, it will also plan to expand its product range by including BNPL services alongside its usual credit offerings.

To achieve the set targets, the startup will utilize the funds to expand its team and partner with multiple Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs).

Executive opinion:

While sharing plans for the future, Navdeesh Ahuja, founder of Pocketly, said, “Pocketly in its current form provides credit to students and young professionals in India through our credit line product, but going forward we are exploring multiple options to meet the various demands of our users in the form of card or BNPL.”

 “We are sure that this fundraise will give us fuel to continue on our growth trajectory and help us build better products and give superior experience to our users,” he added.

Pocketly says it provides a credit line with a fully digital and automated process through its platform for young adults underserved by banks and has grown 10x in the last year. The startup is now serving over 100,000+ borrowers and is currently disbursing more than Rs 250 crore annually. The round was a mix of equity ($1 million) and debt ($2 million).