KarmaLife Raises INR 44 Cr To Offer Early Wage Access To Blue-Collar & Gig Workers

Bengaluru-based earnings-linked financial solutions provider KarmaLife has raised INR 44 Cr ($5.34 Mn) in an extended Pre-Series A funding round led by Krishna Bhupal’s family office. 

Existing investors, including Artha Venture Fund, Net Graph Investments, Singularity Ventures, LogX Venture Partners and several angel investors, also participated in the funding round.

KarmaLife plans to use the fresh capital for scaling, expanding into different geographies, launching more products and spreading awareness about the product.

With the current round, KarmaLife has raised nearly $8 Mn in equity funding.

Founded in 2020 by Rohit Rathi, Naveen Budda and Badal Malick, KarmaLife operates in a B2B2C model and has partnered with 50+ organisations, including Flipkart, Elasticrun, Uber, Porter and Delhivery, to offer the employees an option to access their pay-out before the payday.

KarmaLife claims to have offered its service to 2.7 Lakh gig and blue-collared workers so far. It offers subscription-based credit products, such as earned wage access and line of credit. KarmaLife has developed a proprietary real-time credit scoring system, KarmaScore.

The startup’s flagship product, Earned Wage Access (EWA), gives gig and blue-collar workers access to a portion of their earned but unpaid salary any time before their payday. KarmaLife claims that companies saw up to a 37% increase in staff retention within six months of onboarding.

The startup currently claims to serve over 100K blue-collar workers through its platform.

Rohit Rathi, cofounder and CEO of KarmaLife, said, “We welcome this funding round, which reaffirms our investors’ alignment with KarmaLife’s mission. Together, we aim to drive financial inclusion and offer alternatives to predatory lending. Our unwavering goal is to transform the financial lives of millions of blue-collar workers.”

Krishna Bhupal, chairman of his family office, added, “We share the business’ growth plans as a portfolio investment, and more importantly, the impact of the business connects a few hundred million blue-collar and gig entrepreneurs into a network-based approach to transparently access credit which is sustainable and affordable.”

KarmaLife has raised funding when India’s startup ecosystem is witnessing a resurgence in funding activity after enduring months of funding drought. According to Inc42 data, Indian startups raised $1 Bn in funding across 80 deals in May 2023, up 15% and 31% month-on-month (MoM), respectively.

The fintech startup competes with the likes of EarlySalary, which raised a $110 Mn funding round last August and Refyne, which raised $82 Mn in funding last January.

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