Exclusive: Rubique hires former Myntra, Reliance Jio executives to bolster top deck

Rubique, an online marketplace for financial products for individuals and small and medium businesses, is strengthening its top management as it prepares to expand operations after raising $3 million (Rs 20 crore) in Series A funding recently.

The company has appointed former Myntra executive Anadi Mishra as chief technology officer and former Reliance Jio executive Manish Aggarwal as business head, founder and CEO Manavjeet Singh told Techcircle.in.

Mishra will be responsible for building and strengthening the technology platform while Aggarwal will lay the foundation of the company's business and operations to bring in economies of scale, Singh said.

Mishra will head Rubique's technology center in Bangalore. The IIT Mumbai alumnus has 22 years of experience across product development, analytics and machine learning. He was instrumental in product and team building at Myntra as vice president of engineering analytics. He started his career with Reliance Industries and later worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Unique Identification Authority of India, Rupeex.com and CrowdAnalytix.

Aggarwal, a graduate of IMT Ghaziabad, has 17 years of experience in sales, customer services, vendor management and client relationship management in the consumer goods, banking and financial services, and telecom sectors. He has previously worked with Cadbury Schweppes Beverages India, Coca-Cola India, Standard Chartered, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. In his most recent role, he was the COO at healthcare company EasyLife Enterprise.

Mumbai-based Rubique, earlier known as BestDealFinance.com, was founded by Singh and Sandeep Nambiar in February 2015. The marketplace, owned by Bestdealfinance.com Pvt Ltd, enables end-to-end disbursement of home, auto and business loans against property, credit cards as well as healthcare and construction equipment financing.

Rubique focuses mainly on SME loans as Singh feels the $126 billion credit gap in that segment offers a large opportunity. In addition, the Reserve Bank of India has mandated banks to lend 7 per cent of their annual total lending to micro enterprises.

The $3 million investment was led by Kalaari Capital. YourNest Angel Fund, Globevestor and Dexter Angel Circle also put money in the round. The money is being used to strengthen technology infrastructure, team expansion and enhancing its customer support function.

The company's services are free for customers but it takes a commission on every disbursement from the banks. Singh said the firm is looking to clock revenue of Rs 3 crore in the January-March quarter. "In the next three months, we would make more than whatever we have made in the last nine months," he said.

It has disbursed about Rs 170 crore so far to around 2,700 applicants from around 10,500 who sought a loan. It aims to disburse Rs 500 crore by March.

The firm claims to have signed up with 50 financial institutions for about 200 products across retail and SME loans. "Our objective is to offer the widest possible range to the customer," Singh said.

The company operates in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad. It plans to take its overall headcount to 100 by March from 70 now.

Rubique claims to have nearly 15,000 registered users, though all of them may not be applicants, and hopes to take that number to 50,000 by March.