It's raining money for fintech startups; Sequoia backs Smallcase and Turtlemint

With Sachin Bansal looking to play his second entrepreneurial innings in fintech; Fosun, Matrix, IDG, all admitting the desire to invest in fintech; new startups launching in the space almost every month; it can certainly be discerned that fintech is on boom these days.

Case in point - India’s largest VC firm Sequoia Capital India, is now backing overall 11 companies in fintech, wealth management and investment space within India.

It had become the largest Indian VC when it raised $695 million to invest in Indian space with $3.9 billion already in assets under management.

In the latest set of events, it has backed two fintech companies Smallcase and Turtlemint, right after its investment in Kunal Shah’s Cred.

As far as numbers are concerned, the Indian arm of US-based VC has reportedly led a $6 million round in Turtlemint and pouring in around $7-8 million in Smallcase.

Compared to its lead in a $30 million investment in Cred $15 million monetary infusions in Drip Capital, these might be small amounts, but this illustrates the very fact that the scope in fintech has increased to such an extent that investors are not hesitating even from buying stakes in small firms.

Also read: Doesn’t Kunal Shah’s credit card management app ‘Cred’ reflect Freecharge DNA?

Zerodha backed Smallcase is a unique thematic investment platform where investors invest in a portfolio based on the theme of the stocks, such as ‘GST Opportunity’, as per media reports.

Nexus and Blume backed Turtlemint, on the other hand, was started by ex-execs of Quikr, and operates as an insurance aggregator plus financial advisory platform offering clients data analytics based advice.

Previously, Sequoia has made investments in B2B startup Numberz ($3 million), Bankbazaar, Capital Float, Mobikwik, Scripbox, Fisdom, Upwardly, in the fintech and investment space.

As per experts, the reason behind this boom lies in the innovation being witnessed by the investment and lending space, that goes beyond organic market practices, for example, the reward system in Cred, and this has only been possible due to increased accessibility and availability of customer data.

Going further, it would be interesting to see how the Sequoia fintech equation fairs for the VC, and how fintech as a segment grows in the overall startup ecosystem.

This development was first reported by ET.