Propelld – Education Financing Startup Firm Secured $35 Million

Propelld, a fintech platform for education financing which has secured $35 million in a Series B round headed by WestBridge Capital, with previous investors Stellaris Venture Partners and India Quotient.

Propelld intends to use the current fundraising round to rapidly expand its loan book in a category with low credit penetration and to provide new products for various verticals within education. Propelld employs roughly 150 people, intends to hire another 100-150 people in the coming year in areas like technology, business development, and collections.

The Co-founder and CEO of Propelld – Bibhu Prasad Das commented, “We would like to thank all of our institute and loan partners who have relied on us.” “We will work with this second round of investment to build better financial solutions for the educational environment, which will benefit our partners even more.”

Propelld, founded in 2017 by the IIT Madras trio of Bibhu Prasad Das, Victor Senapaty, and Brijesh Samantaray, has partnered with over 550 educational institutions and is now disbursing loans at a pace of Rs 600 crore per year.

“India spends more than $90 billion on education each year, yet financial inclusion remains low. Through tech-based products, Propelld hopes to close this gap and make education loans more accessible to students. Propelld, like strong vertical-focused financial companies in other domains like Affordable Housing, SME Lending, Consumer Durables, and others, we believe, will become the go-to financial player in the Education domain. Propelld is already profitable, and its credit quality has been continuously high “Deepak Ramineedi, a partner at WestBridge Capital, agreed.

“Their NPA levels, sales, and profitability give us a very strong conviction in the company’s fundamentals,” said Anand Lunia, India Quotient’s partner.

“What excites us is how the team has thought about using technology from the bottom up in all parts of the company’s operations,” said Ritesh Banglani, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners.

Propelld wants to extend its activities in other education areas as well, with a solid footing in the ed-tech, up-skilling, and job-focused markets.