Onsurity Secures $24 Mn in Funding from World Bank's IFC, Nexus Venture Partners, and Quona Capital

Yogesh Agarwal and Kulin Shah (L-R)

The company aims to serve 50,000 businesses and 5 million lives by 2026

Onsurity, India’s first SME-focused monthly subscription-led employee healthcare benefits provider, has raised $24 million in Series B funding. The round is led by International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest global development institution. Additionally, existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Quona Capital also participated in the round.

The insurtech start-up will utilise this funding to work with its insurance partners to facilitate an unparalleled claims experience for its members by co-creating a technology solution to drive a seamless and transparent journey. This initiative is particularly geared towards eliminating prolonged waiting periods and uncertainties typically associated with claims. This will ensure that all members experience a fully digital, transparent, and efficient benefits utilisation journey that is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Additionally, these funds will bolster the company's overarching vision to forge partnerships with 50,000+ companies and provide coverage to over 5 million lives by 2026. A portion of this funding will also be allocated towards the company's efforts to charting its path to profitability.

Speaking on the milestone, Yogesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, Onsurity said, “We are immensely proud of reaching this milestone. Our goal has always been to revolutionise employee healthcare benefits, making them accessible and user-friendly for India’s SMEs. With the strong support of IFC, Nexus Venture Partners, and Quona Capital, we will further intensify our efforts in scaling our tech-based platform which will enable us to extend insurance coverage to a larger spectrum of SMEs, ensuring a comprehensive safety net for their operations.”

Kulin Shah, Co-founder and COO, Onsurity said, “India's SMEs stand at the threshold of a transformative era. The fresh infusion of funds will supercharge our mission to broaden our product offerings by crafting one of the finest tech-led distribution stacks in the industry. It underscores our commitment to shaping innovative partnerships, exploring new geographies, and penetrating underserved customer segments.”

In August, Onsurity became the fastest new-age insurtech to serve a million lives. The company’s reach spans across 5,000+ businesses, leaving an impact on SMEs in 26 Indian states and 3 union territories. It's noteworthy that over 80% of businesses purchasing healthcare memberships from Onsurity have ventured into employee healthcare for the first time.

“The availability of insurance coverage is vital for economic risk management and bolstering social security. Our recent funding underscores our dedication to a technology platform that improves accessibility of employer-sponsored health insurance services," said Wendy Werner, IFC Country Head, India. "Out-of-pocket healthcare expenses can be a significant burden for employees of SMEs. Health insurance helps SMEs manage their expenses while supporting their employees."

With the mission of making healthcare benefits accessible to India’s 'missing middle', Onsurity has catered to a spectrum of companies, ranging from small teams of 3 to established businesses with over 1,000 employees. From covering business executives and start-up employees to gig workers and their dependents, the company boasts of a diverse and inclusive member base. More than half of Onsurity’s members are blue-collar workers, and close to 40% hail from tier II and tier III cities.

Anup Gupta and Anand Datta of Nexus Venture Partners have brought a wealth of experience and strategic acumen to Onsurity’s board. Ganesh Rengaswamy and Sheena Jain of Quona Capital have been an invaluable guiding force in this journey, given Quona’s deep expertise in fintech and having seen similar insurtech businesses in other emerging markets.

The company, through its subsidiary, offers an array of crucial business products, including Cyber insurance, D&O liability insurance, Commercial General Liability insurance, among others under Onsurity Plus. These offerings are designed to provide comprehensive coverage and support SMEs in navigating the complexities of modern risks and challenges.

Finance Management Startup Fisdom Raises Rs.25 Cr in Institutional Funding Led By Quona Capital

Bangalore-based personal finance management startup Fisdom has raised Rs 25 crore in its second round of institutional funding led by Quona Capital.

VC firm Saama Capital which led the first round of Rs 7 crore last October, also participated in this round. Fisdom is a platform that allows users to make financial and investment decisions for long-term financial planning.

With the fresh funding, Fisdom plans to add new financial products like insurance schemes and the National Pension System, improve its technology and expand its team.

Earlier, the startup had raised $1 million in funding from Saama Capital in October last year, and $500,000 in seed funding from a cluster of angel investors including Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist Rob Chandra, CommonFloor co-founder Sumit Jain, TaxiForSure co-founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G., and others.

Founded in 2015 by former venture capital investor Subramanya SV and former investment banker Anand Dalmiai, Fisdom allows its consumers to discover and make mutual fund investments using a mobile app. It has partnerships with banks for sourcing investment schemes.

In last one year, the startup claims to have facilitated one lakh mutual fund investments worth more than Rs 100 crore in assets, it said. The company that focused on mutual funds so far is now planning to bring more financial sector products like insurance and National Pension Scheme (NPS).

According to Fisdom, Indians have more than $1.35 trillion of their wealth in low yield bank deposits and often don't invest in capital markets for various reasons — such as low financial literacy, low trust in market dynamics.

CreditMantri Gets $7.6M in Series B Funding Led by Quona Capital

A vast majority of Indian consumers have limited access to formal credit. The CreditMantri platform was created to bridge this gap between consumers and lenders and thereby make credit possible. Using a combination of traditional data (such as credit reports) and alternative data (such as social media, data from mobile phones etc.), CreditMantri enables consumers to create their credit profile in order to understand their credit potential. The firm has raised $7.6 million funding in series B round led by Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, managed by Quona Capital along with Newid Capital and existing investors -  Elevar Equity, IDG Partners and Accion Venture Lab. The company has served over 1.4 million users till date with over 60% of users providing access to over 2000+ credit relevant data points in-order to build their credit profile using CreditMantri’s proprietary algorithm. All data is captured or shared only after obtaining explicit consumer consent.

The CreditMantri profile helps users understand their credit potential and this understanding helps them make informed and considered credit decisions. On the platform, users can discover loans, credit cards best matched to the profile from lenders across the risk continuum, resolve and dispute issues on existing loans and borrowings, and reduce current borrowing costs.

On the supply side, CreditMantri provides financial institutions access to better quality consumer risk profiles besides helping these institutions cut down on expensive credit operations processes and disburse loans faster. Consumer demand data on the platform is used to create custom credit products to address unmet credit needs e.g. providing unsecured personal credit lines for new to credit consumers or debt consolidation loans for credit challenged consumers. Rich profiling data results in lenders not having to waste resources on applications which do not meet their credit criteria. Over 40 lenders already use the platform to source consumers, resolve past loan issues and expand into new customer segments.

“Lending in India, and doing so responsibly, is a huge opportunity, and alternative data is the key to unlocking this potential. The digitization of Indian consumers’ financial data, pioneered by CreditMantri, is the catalyst that will help build a truly financially inclusive India. Quona is very excited to partner with CreditMantri team and we have tremendous confidence in the team and the way they are solving this important problem,” says Ganesh Rengaswamy, a Founding Partner at Quona Capital, which manages the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund.

CreditMantri was founded by three former Citibank executives - Ranjit Punja, R Sudarshan and Gowri Mukherjee. CEO Ranjit Punja says “The richness in the quality of our credit profiles is validated by the uptake and portfolio performance of the tailormade loan products launched in partnership with financial institutions. The response from consumers and lenders has far exceeded our expectations and validates that we are solving a real market need”.

CreditMantri will use the funds to grow its user base, strengthen its’ product proposition and build out the team. Veda Corporate Advisors were the bankers to the transaction. “The funds raised will help us deliver a complete suite of products and services to give the Indian consumer better choice and make credit truly possible” says Ranjit Punja.