A Fintech For Employees

Founded in 2021 by Anusha Ramakrishnan, Anisha Dossa Aibara and Aditya Mehta, fintech platform Jify, which enables employees to access their earned salary on-demand besides  providing other financial benefits to them, has been going great guns despite a difficult funding environment this year on account of global political and economic headwinds.         

A dazzling performance in the very first year of operation has turned the spotlight on the startup, earning its founders a place in this year’s BW Disrupt 40 under 40 enterprising entrepreneurs list. The startup has been growing 100 per cent month on month on various parameters including revenue and is on track to end the year with a Rs 250 crore loan book, informs Anusha Ramakrishnan, COO, Jify.     

What’s more, despite a funding crunch across industries, Jify recently raised $10 million in a Series A funding led by Accel and Nexus Venture Partners. The company says the money will be used to improve and expand its product offerings as well as strengthen its customer base.   

"Good business ideas with sound business models get funded at right valuations. We have been fortunate not to be affected by the current challenging environment as we raised our Series A with Accel and Nexus and have a runway of 24 to 36 months currently," says Ramakrishnan.  

“The era of 'easy money' appears to be over, but this could be a good thing for startups,” she adds.  
 
Ramakrishnan believes that 2023 will probably continue to be a cautious year for all businesses, including startups. “There will be a lot of focus on capital and cost conservation to tide us through the next few quarters given the overall global market sentiment,” she says.  

Future Outlook  

Although it isn’t easy at all for a startup to undertake expansion in its initial stages, Jify in 2030 plans to double down on its efforts in building the team, especially in tech, product, and sales. The company also intends to grow the current user base from 1 million to more than 2.5 million over the next year, besides focusing on expanding its reach to corporations in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. 

The ambition to build and grow a business usually clashes with the mentality of being conservative on spending. But Ramakrishnan explains that as founders, they have always been cognizant of being frugal when it comes to cash burn, and the current environment definitely requires this.