IndiaP2P raises pre-seed funding from Antler India. The platform creates unique investment products for  retail investors to earn yields up to  18% per annum.

Mumbai-based IndiaP2P was founded in 2021 by startup veteran Neha Juneja, along with investment and fintech specialists Ravinder Voomidisingh and Mohit Gupta. IndiaP2P’s mission is to create investment products, especially debt investment products, that offer superior returns alongside managed risk. The team is taking a unique approach towards peer-to-peer investment products, by sourcing, bundling and creating loan portfolios with a differentiated approach.

Neha, CEO of IndiaP2P, previously built and scaled Greenway, India’s largest clean cookstoves enterprise, with operations across rural India and sub-Saharan Africa. For a decade, Juneja worked on the ground with microfinance operators and rural self-help groups who were distribution channels for Greenway, as well as international asset managers who offset carbon emissions through Greenway stoves projects. While on the field, Juneja had a surprising discovery: that loans given to semi-urban and rural women borrowers in the country were strong and growing, yet there were limited avenues to source capital for these loans, despite their low NPAs and established on-ground partners. Thus, Juneja teamed up with Ravinder, who was previously leading fintech investments at Caspian, and wealth-tech specialist Mohit Gupta, to found IndiaP2P.  IndiaP2P is creating innovative investment products for India, starting with a peer-to-peer investment product  that bundles a portfolio of  diversified microfinance loans. The startup was built along with advisory from industry specialists Roopank Chaudhary, Ankit Mathur, Nagarajan M. Shiji Pavithran & Rachit Mathur. 

The founding team’s vision for IndiaP2P is to continually create unique investment products composed of curated, diversified and directly sourced retail loans, that offer highly competitive returns for investors but manage risk through a proprietary portfolio engine and product innovation. IndiaP2P’s first investment product bundles high-quality loans from microfinance  borrowers that yields 18% p.a. In the long-run, the company is democratizing a new asset class between traditional fixed income instruments and equities by offering innovative debt-based investment products that are curated, transparent and competitive.

IndiaP2P is able to manage risk of their high-yield products due to its unique approach, coupled with best-in-class tech. The startup curates loans from credit-worthy and vetted borrowers, focussing on the MFI segment’s most reliable borrower: Indian women seeking to advance their incomes. Individual loans are packaged into portfolios that reduce risk via diligent diversification, which investors can purchase in tranches as small as INR 5,000. The platform employs proprietary technology along with sophisticated risk management practices, previously available only to institutional investors, in order to develop its retail investment products.

As more and more Indians kickstart their wealth creation journey, IndiaP2P wants to create robust, innovative debt-based investment products based on real economic value that serve as a good entry point for new investors, as well as complement experienced investors' existing portfolios. These investments are uncorrelated with other investment products such as stocks, mutual funds, cryptocurrencies or market movements, hence providing a great way to earn returns while reducing risk through diversification.

Neha Juneja, Co-Founder and CEO of IndiaP2P, adds, “The new age Indian retail investors want a new asset class that lies between traditional FDs and equities that is less volatile, transparent, easy to understand and that generates stable returns. IndiaP2P provides a synergetic platform for both retail investors and borrowers, where the former earn high returns on a debt instrument and the latter receive capital at lower cost. We’ve seen how women across the country have benefitted from access to loans initiated by social underwriting and have set a stellar example of good repayment behaviour, marking them as high-quality borrowers. Hence, we’re turning to them. With this, and our portfolio engine, we are able to offer a far superior risk-return profile compared to others. In the coming years, we aim to expand India’s investor base while also fulfilling the country’s credit demand. We are reimagining India’s financial future and want to soon become the de-facto destination for borrowing and lending in the country.” 

IndiaP2P is leveraging new technology and regulatory ecosystem, creating new ways financial instruments are accessed and created. It bypasses institutional middlemen such as banks and structurally changes how investments into credit are channeled while delivering significant value to both investors and borrowers. It plans to use the funding towards strengthening its technology backend and increasing supply of investment products to serve investor demand. 

“As the Indian retail investor market wakes up to new products and tech-enabled wealth management, we feel bullish about startups opening up new avenues beyond overdone stocks and mutual funds. We are even more bullish on the IndiaP2P team’s ability to crack open this first new segment (highest quality women microfinance borrowers) and then several other borrower portfolios in the pipeline. Neha, Ravinder and Mohit are a rare team that has accumulated deep insights around both the borrower and lender sides from their work deep in the trenches. I can’t think of a better team to also leverage the power of technology and data at the last mile on the borrower side, for the first time in this industry”, added Nitin Sharma, Partner and co-founder at Antler India.

Global early-stage VC firm Antler is one of the fastest growing VC firms in the world and plans to deploy $100M to $150M in 100+ Indian startups over the next 3 years.