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Many times in our life, we just need a small financial push to realize our dreams or fulfill our needs. In today's organized money market, we turn to banks and other financial institutions for getting credits for various purposes. However, it's not always easy to get a loan. From documentation to your current income and credit history there are lots of parameters that you need to fulfill to get a credit.
Thankfully, the scenario is changing now, and many financial and fintech startups are coming up with innovative ways to make borrowing easy and quick for customers.
Bangalore-based ZestMoney is one such fintech startup that is making borrowing possible for people who have an insufficient credit history. People can get quick and easy loans and pay for products with ZestMoney Easy EMI.
Let's know more about this startup that is making life easy for millions of Indians by providing easy access to credit.
ZestMoney – Company Highlights
| Startup Name | ZestMoney |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore |
| Sector | Financial Services |
| Founders | Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma, Ashish Anantharaman |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Parent Organization | Camden Town Technologies Private Limited |
| Website | zestmoney.in |
About ZestMoney
ZestMoney - Founders and Team
ZestMoney - Startup Story
ZestMoney - Mission and Vision
ZestMoney - Name, Tagline & Logo
ZestMoney - Business and Revenue Model
ZestMoney - Funding & Investors
ZestMoney - Growth and Revenue
ZestMoney - Partnerships
ZestMoney - Competitors
ZestMoney - Future Plans
About ZestMoney
ZestMoney is a platform that uses mobile technology, digital banking and Artificial Intelligence to make getting loans easy. While many lending organizations hesitate to lend money in the absence of proper credit history, ZestMoney is the platform that does not see the absence of credit history as a barrier to getting a loan. ZestMoney through its AI-based machine learning decision engine creates a risk profile for every borrower. The ones who do not have sufficient credit history just need to provide some additional information based on which ZestMoney's Decision Engine analyzes the credibility of the borrower and lends him money.
The products of ZestMoney include 'credit limit', also called ZestMoney EMI, and personal loans. To be able to access the ZestMoney Credit Limit, one just has to sign up with ZestMoney and complete the KYC process. Once approved, a user is assigned a credit limit based on his eligibility, and the user can use this credit limit to make payments to ZestMoney's 3000+ merchant partners. ZestMoney has partnered with leading brands from different categories like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, SleepyCat, Xiaomi, NestAway, UpGrad, and many more.
The company's lending partners include DMI Finance, Fox Capital, PACE Finance, Northern Arc, SMC Finance, Nahar Credits, InCred, Muthoot Finance, CSB Bank, Ghalla Bhansali, IIFL and Hedge Finance.
ZestMoney offers personal loans only to the customers who are using ZestMoney's 'Credit Limit' service. As such one who wants to take a personal loan from ZestMoney needs to apply for ZestMoney 'Credit Limit' first.
Yash Gupta
ZestMoney - Founders and Team
ZestMoney Founder trio - Lizzie Chapman from London, Priya Sharma from Delhi, and Ashish Anantharaman from Mumbai, were associated with a UK-based finance company called Wonga. Currently Lizzie Chapman is the CEO of ZestMoney. Priya Sharma is the COO & CFO of ZestMoney, and Ashish Anantharaman is the CTO of the company.
Lizzie Chapman
Lizzie Chapman was a student of the University of Edinburgh from where she obtained her BSc. degree in Microbiology. Chapman is currently serving as the Co-founder and CEO of ZestMoney. She started her career with Goldman Sachs, where she worked as a Business Analyst and an Associate. She then served as an Investment Manager at Wellcome Trust. Wonga.com was the next company that she joined, and served as the Country Head of India there. She then founded Abode Bombay. She eventually became an Executive Director at DBS Bank, served as an Advisor at India Quotient, a role that she is still holding on to. Lizzie is currently also serving as Non Executive Board Member at IndiaMart; a Member of National Startup Advisory Council; a Member of the Innovation Council of NPCI, and as a President of Digital Lenders Association of India.
Priya Sharma
Priya Sharma is the Co-founder, CFO and COO of ZestMoney. Sharma has a Btech in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Varanasi before obtaining an MBA in Finance from London Business School. Priya Sharma served as a Senior Associate at Sapient; a Consultant at Delloite; an Associate at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and then she joined Wonga.com, where Priya headed the Corporate Development before joining hands with the other co-founders and building ZestMoney.
Ashish Anantharaman
Ashish Anantharaman is the Co-founder and CTO at ZestMoney. He has a degree in Software Engineering from the University of Mumbai. Anantharaman served previously as a Application Developer, Senior Developer, headed the Development Team, and the Engineering Department at STME, OCS Consulting, Sportingbet, and Wonga.com.
ZestMoney now has over 200 employees. ZestMoney continues to grow with its well-built team and processed banking technologies.
ZestMoney - Startup Story
Lizzie, Priya and Ashish observed that Online Credit Transaction facility was not up to the mark in India. Also getting credit was not easy for those who do not have proper credit history. With their knowledge and experience, they wanted to create a solution to resolve these uses, which led them to start ZestMoney in 2015.
ZestMoney - Mission and Vision
"We are on a mission to make life more affordable for India using technology-led solutions," says the mission statement of ZestMoney. Making life affordable is the vision of ZestMoney.
ZestMoney - Name, Tagline & Logo
The word 'Zest' stands for positive feelings like enthusiasm, zeal and passion, and thus the word 'Zest' in 'ZestMoney' represents the quick lending of money by ZestMoney thus making borrowing money a happy process rather than a matter of concern. The tagline of the company is ‘EMI for zeveryone’.
ZestMoney - Business and Revenue Model
ZestMoney acts a virtual EMI platform, which integrates with merchants across online and offiline channels. The company serves as a payment partner as well as an affiliate partner to these merchants, and helps in bringing them new transactions and customers.
The company generates the major chunk of its revenues from the Direct Selling Agency Fees, which is the money that the company collects from its lending partners (NBFCs) as a result of the various services like lead generation, KYC, customer care and branding, which it provides. ZestMoney also charges a merchant commission on a fixed rate on products and services purchased by the borrowers from the merchants. Arranger fees is another vertical of revenue that ZestMoney has along with the Others vertical, which consist of income from any other revenue wing.
Ashwini
ZestMoney - Funding & Investors
ZestMoney has raised funding from leading investors like Goldman Sachs, Quona Capital, Alteria Capital, and Primrose. The last, Series C round of funding amounted to $50 mn and was led by Zip Co. Limited and others on September 22, 2021. The company has raised a total of $118.4 mn to date in funding.
ZestMoney recorded a valuation of $435 million in the last round that the company has seen.
| Date | Stage | Amount | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 22, 2021 | Series C | $50M | Zip Co Limited |
| June 2020 | -- | $3.58M | Primrose |
| May 2020 | -- | $3.06M | Primrose |
| March 2020 | -- | $4.6M | Primrose |
| December 2019 | Series B | $15M | Goldman Sachs |
| April 2019 | Series B | $20M | Quona Capital |
| January 2019 | Debt Financing | - | Alteria Capital |
| August 2018 | Series A | $13.4M | Xiaomi |
| December 2016 | Series A | $6.5M | PayU |
| September 2015 | Seed | $2M | Nelson Holzner, Omidyar Network |
Devashish Shrivastava
ZestMoney - Growth and Revenue
ZestMoney earns commission from merchant partners, lending partners and also from borrowers. The company has reported that it receives 500,000+ applications a month, and expect the numbers to rise further.
In 2019, the company also had NPS rating of 75, which is higher than that of Amazon and Uber.
Recently, in March 2021, ZestMoney stood second in a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in India by Deloitte Technology. The rankings were based on percentage revenue growth over three years and ZestMoney grew 2,706 percent in these years.
The operating revenues of ZestMoney surged by 2.7X from Rs 26.7 crore in FY19 to Rs 72.4 crore in FY20, as per the regulatory filings of the company. ZestMoney is yet to file the annual financial statements.
The annual expenses of the company also ballooned by 108.5% to Rs 256.5 crore during FY20 from Rs 123 crore that ZestMoney had spent in total in FY19. Coming to the unit level, the company had to spend nearly Rs 3.54 to earn a single rupee of operating revenue.
The EBITDA margins, which were recorded at -342.2% in FY19, have surely improved for the company to -230.16% in FY20. However, the annual losses, which were Rs 95.4 crore lost in FY19, have nearly doubled to Rs 181 crore in FY20.
ZestMoney - Partnerships
Though ZestMoney is known for partnering with lenders like ICICI bank, TATA Capital, DCB Bank and more, the company also saw some partnersips outside of it.
ZestMoney has partnered with Pickyourtrail on February 2020. The fintech company collaborated with the Chennai-based travel startup to provide consumers flexible payment options for booking itineraries. This tie-up comes as a part of Pickyourtrail's strategic plan to reach more customers.
The new partnership aims to facilitate travellers a more seamless travel booking experience by offering No Cost EMIs, along with options to ‘Travel now, pay later in 3 easy instalments’. Providing the highest approval rates and zero pre-closure charges, travellers now don’t require credit history and are assured hassle free online loan approval to experience their dream destination.
ZestMoney is the largest consumer lending fintech company in India. Its unique platform uses mobile technology, digital banking and Artificial Intelligence to make life more affordable to people who currently don’t have access to credit cards or formal financing options due to insufficient credit history. Pickyourtrail is the latest brand to get Zestmoney onboard as a payment partner. The company has previously partnered with notable brands like Amazon, Myntra, Raymond, Uber, Big Bazaar and Titan.
ZestMoney - Competitors
Some of the major competitors of ZestMoney are:
- Finzy
- LazyPay
- Snapmint
- KredXIndia
ZestMoney - Future Plans
The company plans to expand its product development and partnerships with increased run rate in the future. While several ZestMoney Merchant Partners like Xiaomi, Titan and Croma, accept ZestMoney EMI at offline stores, the company is partnering with more such merchants which will allow customers to pay using ZestMoney EMI in more offline outlets.
FAQs
What is ZestMoney?
ZestMoney is a Bangalore-based Fintech startup that is making borrowing possible for people who have an insufficient credit history.
Who is the Founder of ZestMoney?
Lizzie Chapman, Priya Sharma, and Ashish Anantharaman are founders of ZestMoney.
Who are Competitors of ZestMoney?
Finzy, LazyPay, Snapmint, and KredXIndia are some of the major competitors of ZestMoney.
Who are partners of ZestMoney?
ZestMoney has partnered with leading brands like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, SleepyCat, Xiaomi, NestAway, UpGrad, and many more.
Who are lending partners of ZestMoney?
The lending partners of Zestmoney include DMI Finance, Fox Capital, PACE Finance, Northern Arc, SMC Finance, Nahar Credits, InCred, Muthoot Finance, CSB Bank, Ghalla Bhansali, IIFL, and Hedge Finance.
How to pay with ZestMoney?
While payment, you have to choose the EMI option and then Zestmoney EMI.
Source :- https://startuptalky.com/ Author :- Himaya Presthitha Date :-April 15, 2022 at 12:29PM