Peak XV-backed Bright Money raises $62 Mn

Consumer fintech company Bright Money has closed $62 million in what appears to be Series B round for the Bengaluru and San Francisco-based startup. The funding consists of $50 million debt from Encina Lender Finance and $12 million equity led by Alpha Wave, Hummingbird, and Peak XV Partners.

Encina Lender Finance provides lending solutions to consumer and commercial specialty finance companies across the US and Canada.

In September 2021, Peak XV, Falcon Edge Capital and Hummingbird Ventures led a $31 million Series A round for Bright Money. The fresh infusion will enable Bright Money to aggressively cater to millennials, especially in the US, the company said in a press release.

Four-year-old Bright Money helps consumers get out of debt and its products include credit score building, automated debt paydown plans, financial planning, budget planning tools, and refinance loans. It deals in credit cards, student and car loans.

The company aims to reshape how global retail banks operate driven by big data and AI. It currently has a team of more than 180 employees with a majority of the core product, tech, data, marketing and service teams all based out of India.

Founded by Avi Patchava, Petko Plachkov, Varun Modi, Alex Seyfert, Avinash Ramakath and Amit Bendale, Bright Money was a part of the first cohort of Peak XV Partner’s Surge. It also counts InMobi’s Naveen Tewari and Abhay Singhal of InMobi, CRED’s Kunal Shah of CRED, and Jupiter’s Jitendra Gupta as its angel backers.

In July last year, the company reportedly fired 100 employees or 50% of its workforce citing uncertain funding climate and cost cutting to increase the runway.

During FY23, Bright Money reported 22.5% surge in its revenue to Rs 43.65 crore in India. The firm posted Rs 4.75 crore profit in the same period.