EarlySalary raises $4 million from IDG, DHFL

BENGALURU: Fintech startup EarlySalary has raised $4 million in a Series-A round from IDG Ventures India and Dewan Housing Finance ( DHFL), a non-banking financial company.

The Pune-based startup offers salary advance loans to young, salaried professionals.

EarlySalary CEO Akshay Mehrotra said the funds will be used to achieve 50,000 loans a month by the year-end compared to 4,000 loans processed a month at present. The firm had earlier raised $1.5 million in a seed round from Ashok Agarwal of Trans corp Group in 2015. This is IDG's second investment in the digital lending space after CreditMant ri and its 63rd investment overall, according to Karthik Prabhakar, director and head of fundraising at IDG Ventures India.

"Lending is a broken market today and there is a lot of white space in the initial phase of onboarding customers who do not have credit scores. EarlySalary fits into that space," Prabhakar told ET.

"We look forward to a synergistic association that will enable us to leverage EarlySalary's technology solutions and to working closely with the team as they scale up the business," said DHFL CEO Harshil Mehta.