Fintech startup Uni, which offers short-term credit options for youth, has announced raising of a $6.4Mn (~₹50 crore) debt round from Stride Ventures. Uni has recently gained popularity, largely for its “Pay 1/3rd card” that allows users automatically split their large transactions to three tranches, at zero interest.
Uni had earlier raised one of the largest Series A rounds in the Indian Fintech space in December 2021. General Catalyst, Eight Roads and Elevation Capital led the $70M Series A along with the existing investors Lightspeed and Accel. Uni is currently present in over 130 cities across India, including all major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, and Jaipur.
The startup is founded by seasoned finance veterans, including Nitin Gupta, Prateek Jindal and Laxmikant Vyas. The trio has previously held leadership positions in large fintech and financial services organisations backed by considerable experience in products like pay later and credit cards.
Talking about the debt round, Gupta said, “While there is no dearth of demand for credit products in India, matching the right customer profile with the right product is very important to build a sustainable business. With a deep understanding of credit risk we have ensured the right fundamentals are baked into each of our products. The debt round from Stride Ventures is a vote of confidence that the market has in us and our business model”
Of late, India has seen a surge in usage of credit cards and short term credit solutions. India has largely been a non-credit demography, with people preferring to save, invest and use ROI money rather than depending on credit cards, BNPL and other similar solutions. It is only recently, that credit cards have seen a surge in adoption, with a lot of that surge being driven by pandemic-related economic situation.
The usage however, still pales in comparison to debit cards. According to the RBI, as of March 2022, there were nearly 92 crore debit cards outstanding, while credit cards stood at a mere 7.4 crore. That is one credit card for every 12 debit cards. A silver lining though, is the total spend on both these cards. Even though debit cards outnumber credit cards by a massive margin, the total value of transactions entered into by debit card users is a lot lower than that of credit cards.
