Sequoia-backed fintech startup secures $31m series A money

Bright Money, an Indian fintech startup that also has teams in the US and UK, has raised US$31 million in series A funding from Sequoia Capital India, Falcon Edge Capital, and Hummingbird Ventures.

The round also saw involvement from several angel investors, including InMobi co-founders Naveen Tewari and Abhay Singhal, Cred founder Kunal Shah, Jupiter founder Jitendra Gupta, Uber regional general manager for Asia Pacific Pradeep Parameswaran, and Alphabet board member Ram Shriram. The individual investors had previously participated in the startup’s seed round, Bright Money told Tech in Asia.

Bright Money co-founders (from left) Petko Plachkov, Varun Modi, and Avi Patchava / Photo credit: Bright Money

Founded in 2019, Bright Money claims to be one of the first to use data science to build and scale a consumer fintech startup from India for users outside of the country.

The company has an AI-driven personal finance platform called MoneyScience, which aims to help consumers better control their debt and build more wealth. The company adds that its platform helps consumers understand bank and credit card transactions to make better financial decisions.

“We deploy more than 30 data science solutions consuming thousands of data points from a consumer’s financial life to infer, predict and take financial decisions, building the best possible path to their financial well-being,” Varun Modi, the co-founder of Bright Money said in a statement.

Bright Money plans to use the new funds to expand its teams and product suite. The company currently has 150 data scientists, engineers, and customer experience team members in Bengaluru. It is looking to double the strength of its team ahead of its public launch in the US, where the firm rolled out a beta version of its platform last year and acquired 30,000 users.

Bright Money will also expand its offerings to customers in India and Southeast Asia soon.