SUMMARY
Upgrade CEO Renaud Laplanche, Accel Partners, IDG Ventures Also Participated In The Round
Bengaluru-based consumer leasing startup RentoMojo has raised $10 Mn in Series B funding from Bain Capital Ventures and Renaud Laplanche. Existing investors Accel Partners and IDG Ventures also participated in the round.
With this move, Salil Deshpande (MD at Bain Capital Ventures) will join the RentoMojo board. Deshpande has appeared on the Forbes Midas List of the 100 best-performing venture investors. In addition, Renaud Laplanche (co-founder and CEO of Upgrade) will also join the RentoMojo board. Laplanche is the founder and ex-CEO of US-based P2P lending startup Lending Club.
Talking about the company, investor Salil Deshpande said, “In India’s credit-constrained economy, RentoMojo has built a defensible beachhead in multiple categories in an underserved sector in the subscription economy, with a capital-efficient two-sided marketplace, no balance-sheet risk and network effects at scale.”
RentoMojo was founded in November 2014 by IIT-Madras graduates, Geetansh Bamania, Achal Mittal, Ajay Nain, and Gautam Adukia. It has a consumer product leasing business that raises lease-capital from financial institutions for products rented to consumers for long-term periods, typically 18 months. The company currently offers leases for furniture, appliances, and bikes, etc.
Geetansh Bamania, CEO & founder, RentoMojo said, “India is credit-constrained. We have consumer lending, but not consumer leasing. We believe that the leasing value-proposition is stronger than lending, especially for today’s youth which opts to pay as they use, rather than buying.”
Since inception, the consumer leasing startup has expanded to Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, and Hyderabad. The platform currently claims to have over 25,000 subscribers on the platform.
The startup will use the newly raised capital to further strengthen the product, finish building a stellar leadership team. It will also utilise the capital to expand into new categories and geographies.
Earlier in July 2016, RentoMojo had raised $5 Mn Series A funding from IDG Ventures and Accel Partners. Prior to this, in November 2015, the consumer leasing startup raised $1.96 Mn (INR 13 Cr) from existing investors. Other startups in this segment include CityFurnish, GrabOnRent, FlatFurnish, etc.
