Propelld, a fintech incubator, has secured $35 million in Series B investment from WestBridge Capital, Stellaris Venture Partners, and India Quotient.

Propelld, which was founded in 2017 by IIT Madras trio Bibhu Prasad Das, Victor Senapaty, and Brijesh Samantaray, has tie-ups with over 550 educational establishments and has an annual loan disbursal run rate of INR 600 Cr, according to the firm.

Propelld intends to use the current fundraising round to rapidly expand its loan book in a category with low credit penetration and to provide new products for various verticals within education.

According to the firm, it already employs 150 individuals and wants to hire another 100-150 over the next year in areas like technology, business development, and collections.

Propelld's founders and CEO, Bibhu Prasad Das, stated, “We would like to thank all our institute and lending partners who have believed in us. With the latest capital infusion, we will strive towards building better financial products for the educational ecosystem which will further benefit our partners.”

Propelld also wants to extend its activities in other education categories, with a strong focus on edtech, upskilling, and job-oriented markets.

“India spends over $ 90 Bn annually on education, however the financial penetration is still very low. Propelld aims to address this gap and increase education loan accessibility to students through tech based products. We believe Propelld will become the go-to financial player in the Education domain just as we’ve seen strong vertical-focused financial players in other domains like Affordable Housing, SME Lending, Consumer Durables etc. Propelld is already profitable and has consistently maintained excellent credit quality", remarked WestBridge Capital partner Deepak Ramineedi.

India Quotient partner Anand Lunia stated, “We’ve seen Propelld put their heads down and grow sustainably while being very vigilant about lending fundamentals, even during the last couple of Covid-affected years where the broader financial services industry and fintech in general had large disruptions. Their NPA numbers, revenue, and profitability gives us a very strong belief in the fundamentals of the company.”

Stellaris Venture Partners and India Quotient invested $2 million in the finance firm in 2019. Stellaris Venture Partners invested $928K in the finance business to buy 4.8K shares, while India Quotient invested $638K to buy 3.3K shares.

Fintech has sparked a lot of interest among investors for a variety of reasons. One of the main factors is the growing need for technology-based financial services.

The industry has raised $8 billion ($7.97 billion) in the last year across 280 fundraising agreements, a record high in both cases, with an average investment ticket size of $33 million.

According to our analysis, loan technology and digital payment firms received the greatest capital infusion in 2021 among fintech sub-segments. They accounted for 68 per cent of the overall investment and 44 per cent of the total deal count.

The whole fintech business opportunity in India is anticipated to be $1.3 trillion by 2025, with a CAGR of 31% from 2021 to 2025. Lending technology is expected to contribute for 47% ($616 billion), followed by insurtech at 26% ($339 billion) and digital payments at 16% ($208 billion).

Insurance tech, which is increasing at a CAGR of 57 per cent, is the fastest-growing fintech sub-segment in terms of market opportunity, followed by investment tech (44 per cent) and fintech SaaS. (40 per cent ).