The Money Club raises pre-series A funds led by SOSV and Venture Catalysts

Founded by IIT Kharagpur friends, The Money Club leverages AI to effectively underwrite high frequency, micro pooling of funds by studying user behaviour

SOSV, a Global VC Fund and Venture Catalysts, has announced its latest investment in The Money Club, a fintech startup that has built an AI-based P2P group savings platform to enable the lower-middle-class population to save, borrow and invest digitally. The Pre-Series A round saw participation from other investors including Blume Founders’ Fund, LetsVenture, Keiretsu Forum, Rockstud Capital, Astarc Ventures, and LIV Advisors Ltd.

Founded by IIT Kharagpur friends, Manuraj Jain and Surajit Ray, The Money Club leverages AI algorithms to effectively underwrite high frequency, micro pooling of funds by studying user behaviour. Acting as an artificially intelligent chit fund cashier in the form of an android app, the startup delivers a higher value proposition to savers, investors, as well as borrowers compared to all other available options in the market. With the fresh infusion of capital, The Money Club aims to disrupt India’s largely unorganized $50 billion chit fund sector and bring greater security and transparency.

Manuraj Jain, founder and CEO of The Money Club, said, "Users have been pooling money for over 700 years and this market has been growing at 15 per cent CAGR for the past 10 years. High onboarding barriers and lack of innovation in savings products have driven 180 million in India to resort to pooling funds illegally in the form of committees, beesi, chitty and chit funds and expose themselves to fraud and loss of their hard earned money. Our vision is to make a Savings product that is relevant, lucrative, safe, secure and transparent for over 40 crore low middle income people of India."

William Bao Bean, General Partner at SOSV, shares,  "Money Club has been a pioneer in fostering economic empowerment through its solution, bringing trust and transparency to financial transactions for millions of people in India.  Money Club's AI-enabled underwriting model is a game-changer that will streamline capital flows for the whole nation".

The Money Club platform has acquired over 200,000 users and has grown 500% in the last 12 months. The users have pooled around Rs 40 Crores by forming 17,000 money clubs on the platform till date. The Money Club will use the funds to bolster its technology platform and operations.

“Peer-to-peer lending and money pooling clubs have been a part of society for generations now, albeit in a unorganised format prone to cheating and vulnerable to being influenced by certain powerful members. We believe Bharat is ready for this age-old practice to be available at their fingertips,” said Sarita Raichura, Blume Founders’ Fund.

“We are very excited to be backing the Money Club team. They are bringing an age-old system of how people help each other with money for their needs into the digital age, with a model which works very well. We are truly excited to be a part of money clubs journey ahead and play our part in helping them achieve their vision,” said Salil Musale, Managing Director, Astarc Ventures.

“Chit funds are one of the oldest forms of borrowing platforms for people who were excluded from the formal financial system. However, they are highly unorganized and are ripe for technological disruption. Money Club is at the forefront driving this change with the use of technology and making its services more transparent and reliable compared to traditional chit fund companies.” said Abhishek Agarwal, Managing Partner at Rockstud Capital.