Meet the 9 fintech startups in the third cohort of Financial Inclusion Lab

Bharat Inclusion Initiative, a platform initiated by Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE.CO), has selected nine startups for the third cohort of its accelerator programme, Financial Inclusion Lab.

The accelerator programme, which CIIE had launched with $9.5 million in 2018, is run in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J. P. Morgan, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, MetLife Foundation, Omidyar Network and consulting firm MicroSave Consulting.

The accelerator programme is run in partnership with consulting firm MicroSave Consulting.

The Financial Inclusion Lab, which called for applications in October, identifies and supports startups that enhance the financial health of lower-income communities.

In 2018, CIIE had launched the $9.5 million Financial Inclusion Lab in partnership with JP Morgan, Micheal & Susan Dell Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Related: Meet the 11 fintech startups picked for the first batch of Financial Inclusion Lab

The nine handpicked startups work in the field of credit, savings, insurance and technology-driven financial solutions.

Here are the startups:

Adhikosh: Founded by Aayush Goel and Sahil Bansal, the Gurugram based startup’s platform Kosh, through a Joint Liability Group (JLG) lending model, allows underserved, blue-collar workers borrower segments to apply for loans in groups with friends, family or co-workers. It leverages social relationships for sourcing, underwriting and collections.

Aggois Business Solutions: Founded by Prathmesh Kant and Akhil Sharma, the Bengaluru based startup provides financing to farmers against post-harvest receivables by partnering with financial institutions such as banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFC). It is currently focused on minimum support price (MSP) receivable financing, aiding small and marginal farmers mitigate cash crunch arising from MSP payment delays arising out of procedural and bureaucratic reasons.

Awaaz De Infosystems: Founded by Neil Patel, Sonali Mehta Rao and Elliot Rosenberg, the Ahmedabad based startup’s software-as-a-service (SaaS)  platform provides for automated, interactive voice technology in  11  vernacular languages to financial institutions. This enables transaction-level customisation and storified communication. The analytics platform also provides data on customer’s financial and mobile behaviour to financial institutions.

Credochain Technologies: Founded by Vaibhav Anand and Shivani Sharma, the Delhi based startup operates as a lending marketplace. It enables flow-based lending for specific micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) clusters and automates credit decision-making. The platform also offers data-driven digital credit advisory to MSME borrowers.

Entitled Solutions: Founded by Anshul Khurana, Krishna Yadav and Arpan Jain, the Mumbai based startup partners with their employers to offer financial advisory and salary-linked financial wellness tools such as health insurance and emergency loans to the workers.

Frontier Markets Consulting: Founded by Ajaita Shah, Amrit Mohan and Anjali Balakrishna, the Jaipur based startup has built an assisted e-commerce platform with an aim to help local women entrepreneurs. It provides doorstep delivery of products to the last mile rural customers, after-sales service and also gathers insights on user consumption behaviour.

Lakshy Inclusion Services: Founded by Nishant Kumar and Ashwin Philip Kurian, the Bengaluru based startup’s mobile app takes a savings first approach to improve the financial health of urban underserved and increased acceptance of formal financial products. The app has been specially built for gig workers such as auto drivers and enables them to save as they earn.

Whrrl Fintech Solutions: Founded by Ashish Anand, Falguni Pandit, Abhishek Bhattacharya and Paul Scott, the Mumbai based agri-fintech startup uses digitised warehouse receipts to elevate farmers' income and enable access to finance. It uses blockchain and IoT (internet of things) solutions, to decrease underwriting risks for the lenders, and make loans available in 5 minutes.

XaasTag Regtech: Founded by Shivkumar Jagannath and Gaurav Sharma, the Gurugram based startup’s agri-fintech platform NXTFIN lets banks and insurance companies to participate directly with end user visibility of finance and underwriting risks by creating revenue opportunities for Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) and farmers.