Written by Phil Bronner
Ardent Venture Partners is thrilled to announce our participation in Financepeer’s $31 million Series B funding round, led by QED Investors and Aavishkaar Capital. AVP’s GP, Phil Bronner shares why we invested below.
I am passionate about education and its ability to transform students’ lives. It is one of the reasons I have made multiple investments in the space and co-founded a venture-backed company focused on increasing access to US college degrees for domestic and international students. So when our friends from QED Investors introduced us to Rohit and the team at Financepeer — I couldn’t have been more excited.
Financepeer is an India-based company offering financial services solutions to improve access to high-quality education. Its initial offering is a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solution enabling families to convert tuition into monthly installments with 0% interest. Financepeer’s mission-aligned so clearly with Ardent’sbeliefs that it was an opportunity we could not pass up. Here is how the company checks all of our boxes;
Large Market Opportunity
By 2025, India’s middle class will exceed 580 million people. Indian families highly value quality education as a source of great pride and a means to further upward mobility. Nearly 50% of students in India today are enrolled in private schools, making it the third-largest system in the world. Over 362 million students in India spend more than $216 billion annually on education.
Families are also willing to invest in supplemental education alongside private school fees to ensure the best university acceptance. As India’s middle class grows, the demand for private schools and additional lessons will also increase.
Strong Thesis Fit
At Ardent, we believe that vertical software businesses can benefit from embedding financial services within their products. Embedding financial services into the customer experience increases customer satisfaction, improves retention, and offers new revenue opportunities for the company, dramatically increasing its total addressable market. Financepeer accomplishes this by embedding lending and payments at the point of need for parents paying their children’s school fees. Additional offerings include a debit card with rewards for students and a marketplace of educational content and services financed by BNPL.
Great Founding Team
No stranger to education expenses, founders Rohit Gajbhiye, Sunit Gajbhiye, Naveesh Reddy, and Debi Prasad Baral hold degrees from IIT, MIT, Stanford, and other top-tier institutions. The founders are exceptional, have complementary skills, have worked together in the past, and have deep domain expertise. They also have an aspirational mission that goes beyond the company’s financial goals. We have seen these characteristics in successful entrepreneurs we have backed in the past.
Great Co-Investors
Lastly, QED Partners, one of the world’s leading fintech venture funds, are long-time friends of Ardent and co-investors to multiple companies in our portfolio. I’m excited to work closely with Sandeep Patil, Partner and Head of Asia at QED, who brings a wealth of experience as a former operator focused on building lending products for this segment in India. I also feel fortunate to join the group of investors at Aavishkaar and other firms who bring in-depth knowledge of the education market in India.
The Ardent team could not be more proud to be a part of this vital mission and are eager to watch as Financepeer grows.