Neobank Startup Niyo Bags $100 Mn From Accel & Lightrock India

Bengaluru-based neobank startup NiYO has raised $100 Mn in its Series C round led by Accel and Lightrock India. The fresh round further saw participation from Beams Fintech Fund, in participation with Prime Venture Partners, and JS Capital among others. 

The startup intends to utilise the funds for product innovation, marketing and branding, increasing its distribution footprint, and hiring top talent across functions. 

The fresh investment comes almost after 30 months since it had last raised $35 Mn in its Series B round. Back then, the round was led by Horizons Venture and Singapore’s Tencent in participation with JS Capital.

With its Series C round, Niyo has now raised around $150 Mn across its three rounds from institutional investors. 

Founded in 2015 by IIM Calcutta alumnus Vinay Bagri and mobile application and payments expert, Virender Bisht, Niyo aims to create a technology enabled and value-added product and service offering layer over the existing banking infrastructure, to offer a comprehensive digital banking proposition to its retail and SME customer base.

The startup has four products under its hood – NiyoX, Niyo Global, Niyo Money, and Niyo Bharat. 

It offers digital savings accounts and other banking services in partnership with banks. At present, it serves about 4 Mn customers across its banking and wealth management products with more than 10,000 new users added daily to its platform. 

It claims to process more than US$3 Bn of transactions making it the largest consumer neo-banking platform in India. In June last year, Niyo acquired personal finance startup Index for an undisclosed amount. 

The startup currently has around 500 employees, over 250 of which are dedicated to tech, product and design.                

In the booming fintech space of India,  Niyo competes against the likes of Sonnicorn Open, Jitendra Gupta-led Jupiter, Falcon Edge-backed Fi, and DST Global-backed Zolve. 

While Open has grabbed $100 Mn last year and is in talks to get a new round at an unicorn valuation, Jupiter in December got $87 Mn funding from Tiger Global. Fi has received $40 Mn in its Series A from DST Global.