Mumbai | 18th August 2020: FPL Technologies announced today a $10 million Series A financing round with participation from Sequoia India, Matrix Partners India, Hummingbird Ventures, and a number of reputed angel investors.
The company has also announced the launch of their mobile-first credit card, OneCard. In an industry-first, a user can easily apply for OneCard digitally via the OneScore app, thus evading any physical contact with card agents. The innovation aims to offer easy access to potential users in the wake of social distancing. A VISA Signature metal credit card, it is issued in partnership with a banking partner.
A truly mobile-first credit card, OneCard is built by FPL on a full-stack proprietary technology platform in India. Backed by the principles of simplicity, transparency, and giving back control to the user, it aims to redefine the credit card experience for the digitally savvy young Indians.
Cardmembers can control every aspect of their OneCard from a mobile app – whether enabling domestic/international transactions, locking their card, enabling online/offline transactions, paying their credit card bill, and much more. There are no annual or joining fees and forex markup rate of 1% is among the lowest in the market.
OneCard comes along with a powerful Rewards Program, OneRewards, which awards 5X points on the top 2 spend categories each month. Points are credited and redeemed instantly in OneCard app, with no redemption fee. Further, with the issue of fractional points, no spend ever goes unrewarded.
OneCard Waitlist 1.0 launched in February 2020 saw an enthusiastic response, with participation from over 75,000 users on the OneScore app. In spite of the ongoing pandemic and lockdowns, the company managed to overcome these challenges to build and bring OneCard to market. The company has recently launched OneCard Waitlist 2.0, and as before, it would be available via the OneScore app. OneCard is currently available across 12 cities in India inclusive of — Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Indore, Jaipur and Kolkata. The company’s plans for further geographic expansion are underway.
OneScore app was launched in July 2019 to help consumers check and monitor their credit score and credit report on a monthly basis. It focuses on credit education via blogs, quizzes and in-app tips. It has an advanced score planner which helps users improve their credit score via personalized insights and encourages responsible credit behavior. The app has since acquired close to 2 million users in a year, and available on both Android & iOS platforms.
This latest investment by Sequoia India, Matrix Partners India and Hummingbird Ventures now brings FPL Technologies’ total funding since launch to approximately $15 million. The recent funding round will help the company rapidly scale up its engineering and product teams to develop and grow the issuance of OneCard to more customers.
Anurag Sinha, Cofounder & CEO said, “We are absolutely convinced about the potential of the Indian credit card market on the back of massive growth of card acceptance, consumer adoption towards digital payments and availability of a large base of risk-scored customers in bureaus. We believe that a world-class mobile-first consumer experience suited for Indian consumer preferences, would drive a large adoption of OneCard and we are committed to build and scale that in India.”
“OneCard changes the game for the consumer credit card experience. The FPL team led by Anurag, Vibhav and Rupesh have built a superior offering with the fastest onboarding, easiest reward redemption, and simplest bill payments. Their powerful, proprietary in-house tech-stack will define the future of digital consumer credit in India and this conviction has led to Sequoia India increasing its commitment in FPL.”, said Shailesh Lakhani, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India LLP.
“It has been exciting to see the progress of Anurag, Vibhav, Rupesh and the FPL team from the idea stage to the launch of OneScore and now OneCard. They are well on their way to building the best mobile first credit card experience both online and offline with deep technological and data driven innovation”, added Avnish Bajaj, Founder & Managing Director, Matrix India.
About Sequoia Capital India:
Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies, from idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India operates in Southeast Asia and India where we actively partner with founders from a wide range of companies, across categories, including BYJUs, Carousell, Druva, GO-JEK, OYO Rooms, Tokopedia, Truecaller, Zilingo, Zomato and more.
We spur founders to push the boundaries of what’s possible. In partnering with Sequoia, startups benefit from 48 years of tribal knowledge and lessons learned working with companies like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Dropbox, Google, LinkedIn and Stripe early on.
From the beginning, non-profits have been the backbone of our LP base, which means founders’ accomplishments make a meaningful difference. The majority of our profits are returned to great causes, like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT. For more information on Sequoia’s work in India and SE Asia, visit sequoiacap.com/india
