Mumbai: Snapmint, a Mumbai-based fintech start-up, has raised $9 million in its Series A funding from a clutch of marquee investors and industry leaders led by Prashasta Seth, CEO & CIO of Prudent Investment Managers. The round also saw participation of 9 Unicorns, Anicut Capital, Negen Capital, Livspace founder Ramakant Sharma, Usama Fayyad – Chairman of Open Insights and head of Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University, among other angel investors.
Snapmint, a BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) platform, makes it easy for Gen Z consumers to buy any lifestyle category product, be it clothes, accessories or mobile phones, using small installments and no-cost monthly payment options. It has over 4 million consumers on its platform, many of who are from Tier 2/smaller towns, and serves over 27,000 pin-codes across India. Not only does Snapmint let retail consumers buy with instant credit and realise savings, it also helps merchants tap into a significantly larger customer base and get greater bang for the buck on marketing spends. This win-win approach has helped Snapmint grow over 4x in the last six months and it is fast becoming the most preferred way-to-buy for its consumers and merchants.
With this round of investment, Snapmint plans to expand its network of merchants, launch a suite of innovative BNPL products and power the purchases of over 450 million consumers in India.
IIT batchmates and serial entrepreneurs Nalin Agrawal, Anil Gelra, Abhineet Sawa and Rahul Agarwal, founded Snapmint in 2017. They researched the market on the observation that only a handful of their employees actually had a credit card and many were afraid of onerous credit card terms. As per industry estimates, although there are nearly 450 million bank account holders, there are less than 35 million active credit card users. On the other hand, over 15 million young consumers join the workforce every year, and they aspire to buy a range of lifestyle products. Snapmint was founded to give customers the option of paying using convenient installments, thus letting them manage their monthly cashflows without burning a hole in their pocket.
Nalin Agrawal, Co-founder of Snapmint said, “We are excited to partner with marquee investors and industry leaders in our growth journey. This investment will boost our expansion plans as we look to grow our merchant partners 50x pan-India and bring a unique shopping experience to our customers. Our transaction-led underwriting models allow us to democratize access to credit, provide fair financial terms and give the freedom of choice to our consumers.”
Prashasta Seth, CEO and CIO of Prudent investment Managers said, “We are truly impressed by the team’s ability to underwrite young customers from Tier2/small towns instantly and seamlessly, which shows in the portfolio quality. This differentiates them from a vast majority of the other players in the space. We are proud to partner with Snapmint on this growth journey and look forward to powering the next revolution in digital payments and purchase financing.”
The $810 billion Indian retail market is the fourth largest in the world, and affordable credit options will continue to boost the growth of this market. A 2021 report by Bain and Co. shows that 80% of the growth in new e-retail customers came from Tier-2/ smaller towns in India. Snapmint is looking to democratize access to credit by allowing these customers to buy on interest free installments, with no hidden costs. For online merchants, Snapmint’s platform gives upto a 25% boost to sales, opening up a brand-new segment of customers which were previously not shopping with them.
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