Raghunandan's Two-Month-Old Neobank Zolve Bags $15 Million In Seed Funding

TaxiForSure co-founder Raghunandan G’s newest startup Zolve, a cross-border digital banking venture, has raised around $15-million seed funding in a round led by Accel Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

With the fresh investment, the two-month-old startup aims to offer frontend banking solutions to migrants moving from India to the U.S. and vice versa through tie-ups with American and domestic banks in the first stage, the company said in a statement. It aims to offer customers services including remittances, loyalty-based solutions, crypto currency, insurance and credit through partnerships.

“Our cross-border neobank will enable global citizens to access financial products seamlessly, save money and invest it further, helping them be financially free to pursue their ambition, no matter where they are,” Raghunandan, said in the statement.

Raghunandan, an angel investor to more than 40 startups, sold its first venture TaxiForSure to Ola Cabs in 2015 for $200 million.

For his new startup, he already has the backing of some of the prominent angel investors including Kunal Shah, founder of Cred; Ashish Gupta, former managing director at Helion Ventures; Greg Kidd, angel investor in Twitter and Ripple; Rahul Mehta, managing partner at DST Global; and Rahul Kishore, senior managing director at Coatue Management. The round also saw participation from early-stage investor Blume Ventures.

Zolve also becomes the first Indian startup to receive investment from Founder Collective, an investor in Airtable and Uber Technologies Inc.

"The global citizen community is largely underserved in terms of access to financial services and we believe that there is a huge market opportunity for Zolve," Anand Daniel, partner at Accel, said.