Edu-Fintech Startup Financepeer Launches "UVA", an Innovative Numberless Dual-interface Card for Students, First Time in India

With an aim to achieve cash-free campuses, Financepeer, one of India’s leading edu-fintech startups has unveiled its latest offering – the UVA Card, powered by Visa. Financepeer UVA Card Program will be their numberless prepaid photo ID card for students, parents, and institutes to make day-to-day transactions easy and hassle-free.

UVA Card, technologically backed by Visa, is an innovative approach to digitizing the financial system in educational institutes across India. The program intends to create cash-free campuses by enabling the institutes, parents, and students to pay and receive fees, withdraw cash, do e-commerce transactions and be able to make payments effortlessly at any retail outlets that use point of sale (POS) terminals. UVA Cards are pre-paid contactless cards that can drive financial independence among young adults. This card helps in getting extended credits, makes hassle-free payments, and teaches the youth to save and spend money wisely, besides offering various rewards and discounts.

Mr. Rohit Gajbhiye, CEO and Founder, of Financepeer, said, “We are working towards bringing a revolution in Edu-fintech space through technology and at the same time creating impact at the bottom of the pyramid, via increasing access to quality education. Our recent funding and collaboration with industry stalwarts have given renewed strength and a new purpose to our mission. In view of this, we are launching a numberless dual interface product which is a photo ID card to make cashless transactions easy for students, parents and institutes with just a tap. To make electronic payments safer and hassle-free for our students, these Visa cards have been designed with EMV chips”.

Mr. Sujai Raina, Head of Business Development, Visa India said "As a network working for everyone, Visa is committed to expanding financial access and inclusion across diverse demographics. We are delighted to collaborate with Financepeer as they launch the UVA Card, an innovative, prepaid card solution that not just works as a photo ID and payment instrument but aids financial discipline. The UVA card has been designed specifically keeping in mind the unique spending needs of students and their guardians, and is a decisive step towards building a cashless economy among young consumers."

Financepeer is gearing to expand its reach to remote areas and has witnessed 10x growth in the last year. The company has partnered with more than 10,000 educational institutions with a Pan-India footprint, to deliver affordable fee financing products, Edu-tech content, and fee payment solutions. Founded in 2017 by seasoned alumni from IIT/IIM/Stanford, Mr. Rohit Gajbhiye, Mr. Sunit Gajbhiye, Mr. Naveesh Reddy, and Mr. Debi Prasad Baral, Financepeer is one of the first players in this space catering to both offline and online education providers including pre-schools, K-12, colleges, universities, offline test prep, ed-tech, and skilling.

The launch of the UVA card underscores its strong foundation as a tech-led education financing company, giving learners the freedom to chase their dreams consistent with its focus on innovation and enabling a Rising New India through easy access to education. With a vision to enable inclusion through education globally, Financepeer is committed to facilitating access to education and fostering the growth of educational institutes and learners worldwide.

"Financepeer raised USD 31 MN in Series B funding round in April this year. We are working on enhancing our technology platform and offerings, expanding and strengthening our education-institution partnerships, and deepening the reach in rural areas to enable more students, especially the girl students, to get easy access to quality education", added Mr. Gajbhiye while addressing the media here at Famous Studio.

Education financing is one of the fastest-growing segments as it is a deeply underserved sector that enables the aspirations of learners across India. Due to the inherently high social collateral, the lending book for this segment has been among the best-performing ones, despite macro shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

About Financepeer: www.financepeer.com

On the journey to becoming India’s fastest growing Edu-Fintech Company, Financepeer is a Forbes acclaimed and Google incubated high impact education fee financing company. Established in 2017, the Company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, has its presence in more than 100 cities in India and has collaborated with 10,000 + education institutes across boards. Mr. Rohit Gajbhiye is the CEO and Founder of Financepeer. Honored by Forbes 30, he is an alumnus of IIT Bombay and Stanford Ignite.

About Visa:

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

Edu-Fintech Startup Financepeer Raises $31 Mn in Series B Funding from QED Investors & Aavishkaar Capital

QED Investors from Virginia, USA, and Aavishkaar Capital from Mumbai, India, have led the round of investment in Financepeer, a Google-incubated edu-fintech startup

Financepeer had raised a fund of $ 3MN in 2020 during COVID-19 pandemic and created a positive impact in the lives of thousands of students and parents who were affected financially with respect to payment of fees

Financepeer, one of India’s leading edu-fintech startups, has raised USD 31 MN in Series B funding round led by U.S. VC QED Investors and Mumbai-based Aavishkaar Capital. With a vision to make quality education accessible to all, Financepeer plans to utilize the funds to enhance its technology platform and offerings, expand and strengthen its education-institution partnerships, and deepen its reach in rural areas to enable more students, especially the girl students, to get easy access to quality education. This round also saw participation from U.S.-based edu-tech investor Ardent Ventures, DMI Sparkle Fund, DMI, 9Unicorn, LC Nueva AIF and Maxar VC.

Financepeer, one of the fastest-growing edu-fintech startups, has witnessed 10x growth in the last year. The company has partnered with more than 10,000 educational institutions with a Pan-India footprint, to deliver affordable fee financing solutions, Edu-tech content, and fee payment solutions. Founded in 2017 by seasoned alumni from IIT/IIM/Stanford, Rohit Gajbhiye, Sunit Gajbhiye, Naveesh Reddy and Debi Prasad Baral, Financepeer is one of the first players in this space catering to both offline and online education providers including pre-schools, K-12, colleges, universities, offline test prep, ed-tech, and skilling.

Rohit Gajbhiye, CEO, Financepeer, said, “Financepeer has processed more than USD 100 MN of fees on its platform and helped hundreds of thousands of students get quality education. In line with the company's vision for the next phase of growth, it is very important to join hands with sector-specific and the right set of leaders, partners and investors. Our mission is to bring revolution in the education space through neo banking and at the same time create an impact at the bottom of the pyramid, via increasing access to quality education. This mission is further strengthened and eased off with relevant industry stalwarts QED, Aavishkaar and Ardent Ventures joining us."

Sandeep Patil, Partner & Head of Asia, a fintech-focused venture capital firm QED, said, "We are thrilled to back Rohit, Naveesh, Debi, Sunit and the team. FinancePeer's quest to leverage financial technology to deliver on important socio-economic and development objectives is more important today than ever. We were thrilled by the audacity of their vision, the energy, commitment and depth of the team, and the traction they are poised to drive in the marketplace. We can't wait to see what they will achieve next."

Aavishkaar Capital started in 2001 with a vision to invest in socially and environmentally conscious start-upsthat can catalyse development for excluded communities and remote geographies across the globe. 

Sushma Kaushik, Partner, Aavishkaar Capital, said, "By investing in Financepeer, we are realizing our dream of building a financial ecosystem that would nurture people’s educational aspirations through technology across the emerging low- and middle-income population. Through our first investment from the new fund, we are excited to partner with Financepeer as they are servicing a large unmet need in the aspiring Indian edtech segment, creating a significant impact in Tier-2 and beyond cities. Also, we have realized that support via finance significantly improves access to education, especially for girl students wanting higher education. This has been validated by the large base of girl students in Financepeer’s network."

Phil Bronner, Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Ardent Venture Partners, said, "It is our experience that the right capital and support in the early stage can result in significant value creation. Financepeer is growing quickly and is poised to be a leader in its market. This is our first investment in India, and we are excited about the partnership."

There are over 362 MN students in India, who spend more than USD 216 BN annually on education. Average Indian household spending on education and skilling has seen a significant increase over the last few years. “However, access to credit from formal financial institutions eludes this segment. Financepeer offers innovative digital-enabled financing solutions through institutional partnerships to students seeking credit support for fee payment,” Rohit added.

Education financing is one of the fastest-growing segments as it is a deeply underserved sector that enables the aspirations of learners across India. Due to the inherently high social collateral, the lending book for this segment has been among the best-performing ones, despite macro shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ashika Group, a leading diversified financial services group was one of the advisors in this funding round for Financepeer that has ace batsman and Indian Cricket team captain Rohit Sharma as its brand ambassador

Womennovator and Financepeer Host Discussion on New Way of Learning with Education Experts

A virtual We Talk on "Learner First-Unlocking the Learning Potential" was organized by Womennovator and Financepeer, a peer-to-peer lending platform connecting individual borrowers to lenders digitally.

Womennovator and Financepeer - Learner First-Unlocking the Learning Potential

The organizers invited experts from the education ecosystem and Edtech startups to find the answer to a simple question - 'how do we learn', exploring the role of Learner Centered - Learner First approach to learning.

Panelists included Tripti Shinghal Somani, Founder of Womennovator, Debiprasad Baral, Co-founder & CTO, Financepeer, Dr. Cliff Zintgraff, Chief Learning Officer of SAMSAT, Prerna Gupta, Strategic initiatives at RIL, Komal Sood, Educationalist & Principal at The Army Public School, Manish Gupta, Chairman at JIMS, Charushilla Narula - Founder Director, University Connection, and Digvijay Gagneja - COO, Leverage Edu. The session was moderated by Simmi Puri, Co-founder CISO Cybersecurity.

Even prior to the "physical lockdown", learning outcomes had been suboptimal. Teachers have remained trapped in outdated curriculum, and teaching methodologies have not been able to generate curiosity (to learn) in the minds of the learners. The World Bank believes we are in the grips of a learning crisis, where 60% of children today globally fail to achieve minimum standards of reading and arithmetic as a result of poor-quality teaching. And while infusion of technology in schools might aid in enhancing students' learning outcomes, technology alone probably isn't enough to bring about the desired systematic change.

Tripti Shinghal highlighted that STEM is a novel approach to learning and focuses on practical aspects of education. STEM is an interdisciplinary approach to learning where academic concepts are coupled with real-world lessons.

The session started with Dr. Cliff Zintgraff, who has done pioneering work on STEM learning programs and is a great believer of inquiry-based learning.

"I believe experiential learning is the most engaging and effective way to teach. For learner-centric instruction to scale up, we need to align the designers of the curriculum with teachers in the classroom; we need to know how learners are engaging with the content, especially the ones who are challenged by the topic to ensure equal learning outcomes,AI-Powere," he said.

Deviprasad Baral, from Financepeer, highlighted the power of education and its impact on a person's life.

"Financepeer, came up with this novel idea of bringing in 'affordability' of quality education by financially enabling parents and helping their children realize the education dream. We are creating a 'Netflix' of learning content at affordable pricing and also offering free ERP solutions to academia (for one full academic year) to ensure continuity of their operations. Apart from enabling easy access to education loans, our other value-added service (VAS), is free insurance to parents and children - in case of any unforeseen event or tragedy during the child's academic life - the entire fee is borne by Financepeer. Ours is a unique, AI-Powered "peer-to-peer" lending platform and is playing a vital role in democratization of "quality" education - in making "aspirational India" realize its education dream," he shared with the attendees.

Komal Sood emphasised on how policies in the past have had incremental changes (most of them in silos) without integrating it with the next stage of education.

"Our designers have been quite radical - from School Education to Higher Education, the NEP envisions to provide a new structure to the education sector of the country. Students are free to choose any subjects, all subjects are equal, and can pursue the same in higher education. Restructuring the 10+2 to 5+3+3+4 is a progressive shift towards a more scientific approach to education," she added.

Charushilla Narula said that just like the interdisciplinary approach in subjects being proposed - we need to marry the role of a career counselor and psychologist to work effectively on career development and student well-being.

Digvijay Gagneja, from Leverage Edu, the AI-counselling platform, explained how machine learning algorithms do the matching and help students select their colleges and career paths. However, he agreed that picking the right college and career is indeed the biggest decision of one's life-AI will always be an enabler, but the human aspect (the counselor) is critical.

"Starting from a point where the student has multiple options to choose from, to narrowing it down what is the most suitable college and career, AI kicks in enabling the students, parents and counselors to make informed decisions - AI kicks in "small small step" throughout the student's journey - this needs to be stitched by the (human) counselor. At Leverage Edu, machine learning algorithms also do the matching and help students get connected with alumni of top global universities and working professionals to mentor them," he shared.

About Womennovator

Womennovator is a virtual incubator for women, was started in the year of 2014 with the motive in mind to make a virtual incubator for women entrepreneurs or women who do have exceptional ideas and want to get a platform to grow. It is an initiative with the goal of helping women entrepreneurs to grow local economies by providing business education and training, mentoring and networking, win new revenue contract - domestically and internationally through interaction with Industry leaders, embassy connect, provide media reach (digital and print) through their story on exclusive YouTube Channel, access to capital and Govt. Support schemes across the country.