The funds raised, referred as the “mentors round” of funding, is an extension of the startup's seed round funding. Tortoise had raised around $2.3 million, in a seed round of funding from Vertex Ventures, a part of global investment firm Temasek.
Founded in 2020, by Vardhan Koshal and Surya Harsha Nunnaguppala, Tortoise allows its users to make small deposits spread over a few months to a year for a particular purchase on the Tortoise app while being assured of cashbacks up to Rs 10,000 on the purchase.
Tortoise is different from "buy now, pay later" philosophy and call itself "Save Now Buy Later (SNBL)" fintech platform wherein — while the former pushes its users towards loans, credit and EMIs, Tortoise is trying to introduce a better way to make purchases by saving up as per a plan best suited for users' need and buying later means additional rewards, no debt, credit, or fees.
Besides Tortoise, other saving apps are - magicpin, that allows its users to earn points on every purchase; and Spenny, a micro-saving app that offers an easy & fast way to save and invest money.
In June, an another micro-saving app, Siply, had raised $19 million in funding led by Qi Ventures. Last year in January, Siply raised $1 million in a Seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures,
Interesting to see that while recently, Nikhil Joy, a former vice president of ZestMoney, also joined Tortoise as a co-founder. In July last year, Zomato’s co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal has joined the board of magicpin, as an independent director.
Source - BusinessToday
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