Accel Partners and Sequoia Join Hands on New Series A Funding Financial Services startup Drip Ventures Gets Series A Equity from Accel, Sequoia and more
By Rahul R •
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Developing technology-driven solutions actually catering to the vast majority is now catching up, and going by latest developments, the Fintech players and startups are seemingly leading this race. Also, with technology being the backbone with respect to connecting with equity investors, there has been new developments even as far as actual technology-driven solutions getting the recognition they apparently deserve.
Now, in a new development, another technology-driven financial solutions startup catering to the developing economies and more specifically the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), a venture called Drip Capital has just raised Series A funding from the likes of Accel Partners, and Sequoia.
Decoding investments raised, to further the SME financing cause
Drip Capital, founded in 2014 by Pushkar Mukewar and Neil Kothari, uses an automated risk assessment model to do away with traditional paperwork to make the process of burrowing by SMEs apparently hassle-free.
The startup so far has raised equity amounting to more than USD 20 million; through 4 rounds of funding dating back to 2015. The latest Series A produced USD 15 Million in equity and the leading investors were Accel, Sequoia, Y Combinator, and Wing Venture Capital.
Now, it is worth understanding that getting the likes of Sequoia and Accel to pump in Series A requires a true purpose; with technology-harness and business scalability being the key criteria. Hence, the latest funding round assumes significance considering the fact that this Series A capital could be used to make finances even more accessible to the SME owners who more often than not face the issue of finance rejections due to age-old lending mechanisms.
With technology at the forefront, the latest Series A funding raised by Drip Capital potentially makes sense for SMEs considering the fact that bureaucratic paperwork (and hurdles) existing since ages could potentially be eliminated.
Technology forming the crux of equity fundraising
With investors today having turned smarter and continually seeking to mentor startups smartly, it becomes a mandate that you (being a new business owner) drive next-gen change through technology.
""Technology has helped us in offering a very personalized high quality wealth advisory experience, at scale. Our investors also believed that technology will help in democratizing access to financial products for the retail investors," states Nitin Agarwal who is CEO at yet another financial advisory startup called Oro Wealth. Like Drip Capital, Oro Wealth also recently raised Series A.
Apart from financial services, technology is the most sought criteria for investors across other sectors as well.
"We use deep learning and proprietary algorithms to automate every mile of the supply chain and remove human dependency in decision making," states Nishith Rastogi who is CEO and Co-Founder at Locus that uses disruptive technology to potentially make logistics operations efficient.
With technology-driven models being the key, it takes a lot of convincing on the part of startup owners to actually get investors to invest; in the next step. Hence, you could follow the straight-bat approach. This requires you to get your stories right, have clear goals and back it up with a solid execution plan.
