First Principles Labs Technologies, a Fintech start-up, raised a funding of $4.5 million in its first financing round from Matrix Partners India, Sequoia India and a couple of angel investors.
The start-up was founded in September 2018 and by Anurag Sinha, Vibhav Hathi, and Rupesh Kumar. According to a report in Economic Times, the fresh funds will reportedly be used to strengthen the company’s product offering, team expansion, and customer acquisition.
The recent start-up, which already launched One Score Application for credit tracking, also looks forward to launching its first mobile credit card in partnership with a bank.
Commenting on the significance of a card, Anurag Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO, FPL Tech, said, “We believe there are another 60-65 million customers who have a good credit score who have taken loans and repaid in the past but do not have a credit card; we can cater to that market,”
India, the potential market for credit card growth
India, being the potential market for companies like FPL Technologies, has about 50 million credit cards & 25 million unique credit card users, as per industry estimates. Major players like Flipkart, Paytm, and Ola have shown heightened interest in the credit card market. Many such players have launched their own credit cards in collaboration with banks.
“In India, the regulator does not allow credit cards to be issued independently by non-banks, hence we are in the final stages of stitching a partnership with a major bank,” Sinha said
The founders of the company, hailing from banking backgrounds, are experts in payments, credit, and building and scaling digital businesses. The team claims that their 2 months old app OneScore has built over 100,000 users in a short notice of time.
“In a market as crowded as the financial services space with a plethora of services and products to choose from, FPL breaks through the clutter with a simplified and streamlined approach to rebuild the credit and payments platform with a unique model that leverages tech and over-weighs on data security,”commented Rajat Agarwal, director, Matrix Partners India
FPL plans to target their one lakh customer base on OneScore app first for their credit card product. The consumption of credit linked to total consumption expenditure in India will grow exponentially in the next decade, FPL believes.
“When they presented a plan to modernize credit cards in India it immediately resonated with the Sequoia India team. It’s a delight to partner with them as they work on developing more flexible, affordable and easier to use financial products for Indian consumers.”, said, Shailesh Lakhani, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India LLC.
