Profitable second time period entrepreneurs have been elevating larger seed rounds. Kunal Shah, Ashish Kashyap and Jitendra Gupta every raised over $25 million rounds at thought phases, and not using a working product.
On comparable traces, Nitin Gupta, PayU co-founder and former Ola Monetary CEO, is in superior conversations to lift $18-20 million for his yet-to-be-launched fintech startup UniOrbit.
In line with three Entrackr sources, Gupta’s firm can be centred round SME lending. “The seed round is set to be materialised at a valuation of $40-45 million. Accel Partners and Lightspeed would lead the round while some individual investors are likely to participate,” mentioned one of many sources on situation of anonymity.
This might be Gupta’s third startup. Beforehand, he based PayU and Khojguru. Just a few weeks in the past, Gupta additionally registered a brand new entity UniOrbit Applied sciences Non-public Restricted. Former Ola government Prateek Jindal is one other director in UniOrbit, present regulatory filings.
Sources added that Gupta’s new enterprise would supply credit score merchandise underneath the identify Orbit. “It’s likely to launch a credit card focused on small and medium enterprises,” mentioned the second supply. “Gupta has roped in two more individuals as core founding members from the financial services sectors and is currently hiring across product, tech and operations.”
Entrackr couldn’t verify the small print of the 2 different co-founders.
Gupta was the CEO and co-founder of PayU for over 5 years. After exiting the Naspers-owned funds agency in 2011, he ventured into angel investing. His portfolio consists of OfBusiness, BharatPe, Trell, Mosaic Wellness, CoHo amongst a number of others.
In December 2017, Gupta joined Ola Monetary Companies as CEO and resigned in May after a two-and-a-half year-long stint. “Gupta has been passively working on his new gig from the beginning of this year,” added the above-quoted individual. The individual requested anonymity as effectively. “While UniOrbit would dilute about half of the company in the seed round, it won’t look to raise more money for the next two years.”
Entrackr queries despatched to Accel, Lightspeed and Gupta didn’t elicit any response. We’ll replace the story as and once they reply.
Gupta is without doubt one of the handful of entrepreneurs who has closed giant quantities in maiden financing. Shah’s Cred and Kashyap’s IndMoney raised near $30 million in seed rounds whereas Jitendra Gupta scooped up $25 million for his second enterprise – Jupiter.
