Earned wage access solution provider Refyne raises $20 Mn

Earned wage access solution provider Refyne on Wednesday announced it has scooped up $16 million from partners of DST Global and RTP Global in its Series A round. 

The company also revealed it had raised $4.1 million in December 2020 in its seed round led by QED Investors and Jigsaw VC which also saw participation from XYZ Capital. This is QED’s first investment in India according to TechCrunch. 

The Bengaluru-based firm said it will deploy the funding to expand its technology team and scale growth initiatives.

Refyne offers a plug and play software to companies that allows their employees to access their real-time earned salary. Employees can withdraw this amount using Refyne’s app at any point. 

“The earned salary gets credited to the bank account in less than 30 seconds,” the company said in a statement. “Companies that have deployed income streaming have recorded an uptick in staff loyalty, retention, and productivity due to the visibility employees gain into work hours and the corresponding earned income,” it added.

According to the firm, its solution is an alternative to short-term credit facilities that allows users to cover expenses without risking debt cycles. 

The company, co-founded by Chitresh Sharma and Apoorv Kumar in November 2020, said it has partnered with almost 100 companies including Cars24, Rebel Foods, and Cafe Coffee Day among others, with over 300,000 employees in India and plans to cover more than 1 million workers this financial year. 

While Refyne doesn’t have any direct competition, it indirectly competes with payday loans that offer short term credit along with firms including EarlySalary. Since payday loan apps are under the regulator's scanner and many of them have wound up their operations, adoption of platforms such as Refyne are likely to go up.

Update: The headline of this story has been updated to reflect that Refyne has raised $20 million in total, including seed round.