News on Medial

Related News

Bharat Fintech Summit highlights fintech industry’s challenges and opportunities

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Bharat Fintech Summit highlights fintech industry’s challenges and opportunities
Medial

The Bharat Fintech Summit 2024, organized by The Digital Fifth in Mumbai, saw the participation of 3,000 people from the Indian fintech ecosystem. Held between February 7 and February 8, the second edition of the summit hosted as many as 23 speaker sessions, five fireside chats, and 10 demonstrations. The panel discussions touched upon a wide range of relevant issues, including the dynamic fintech landscape in the country right from product-led innovations, much needed collaboration between banks and fintech players, cybersecurity and the need for increased regulatory compliances in payments and digital lending to improve banking experiences for customers and protect them from various frauds. Entrackr was present at the event and held conversations with several stakeholders of the fintech industry. It’s worth noting that the event comes at a time when the fintech industry is benefiting from the radical digital transformation of the banking industry and e-commerce growth around India and the globe. Banks and financial institutions are moving towards 100% digital for the retail and MSMEs segments in upcoming times and major innovations in the Indian BFSI industry have been propelled by the regulators and public infrastructure such as IndiaStack, Account Aggregator, and the ONDC. Enterprise fintechs are poised to expand, with projections estimating a market size of approximately $20 billion by 2030. The Digital Fifth cofounder and CEO Sameer Singh Jaini told Entrackr that the last decade witnessed a continuous influx of funds into enterprise fintechs. This, coupled with the entry of new-age players in various enterprise segments, is shedding light on the previously untapped potential of this market. “We organize the summit which are focused on content and depth and welcome here everybody from the entire Indian fintech ecosystem including the participation of 70 – 80 VC firms where they share fruitful insights, collaborate and intend to thrive their businesses amongst each other,” he added. Embedded Finance also was under the spotlight during the event as a general sentiment was to bring more focus on the need for more players to drive customer engagement in partnership with banks. During his keynote speech, RBI executive director P Vasudevan stressed the need for frictionless credit and highlighted it has the potential to become the next digital public infrastructure. “It’s a vibrant experience for me to attend such a summit and also marked presence in one the panel where we discussed tech led credit networks, leveraging multi-layered lending partnerships and cutting-edge tech for the future-ready financial sector. MSMEs lending landscape, challenges, innovation, collaboration and others. MSMEs sector has been the backbone of the Indian economy and the emergence of technology in this space is worth watching,” Alok Mittal, co-founder & MD at Indifi, told Entrackr. Indifi offers loans for small businesses which turned profitable last year and crossed Rs 1,500 crore AUM in March 2023. Perfios’ Chief Strategy Officer Ramgopal Subramani appreciated the summit saying such events are instrumental in facilitating knowledge exchange, fostering partnerships, and driving comprehensive sectoral growth. “At Perfios, we are happy to partner with events like BFS that serve as collaborative platforms across the BFSI sector to address challenges and explore innovative opportunities,” he said. “It’s always great to be associated with The Digital Fifth and the summit which can be a game changer for the entire fintech Indian ecosystem and curated this event for the last where a lot of collaborations took place,” said Vaibhav Tambe, co-founder, TransBank. TransBank is a SaaS-based platform where it takes a minimum guarantee for a particular number of services and charges per transaction basis. The summit also saw the attendance of spokespersons from different fintech startups like Trifecta, GetVantage, Zaggle, FinBox, Skydo, Bureau, Fixerra, and others.

Online dispute resolution platform CADRE ODR raises $200K

EntrackrEntrackr · 8m ago
Online dispute resolution platform CADRE ODR raises $200K
Medial

Online dispute resolution (ODR) platform CADRE ODR has raised $200,000 in an ongoing pre-series A funding round from Aprameya Radhakrishna, Murali Subramanian, Ram Bhamidi, Aneesh Garg, and Rahul Guptan. The proceeds will be used to democratize access to justice, creating an affordable, efficient, and accessible dispute resolution option for businesses and individuals, CADRE ODR said in a press release. Co-founded in 2019 by Kanchan Gupta and Rajneesh Jaswal, CADRE ODR uses advanced technology to offer legally binding, rapid, and cost-effective solutions for commercial and other disputes. The company leverages an AI-driven platform to reduce dispute resolution times to as little as 45-60 days, compared to conventional methods. The company’s platform addresses the critical issue of delayed and costly legal resolutions. CADRE provides a comprehensive, tech-enabled dispute resolution solution with a streamlined legal workflow. It asserts that it has already processed nearly 8,000 cases across banking, securities, employment, and commercial disputes. The company plans to enhance its development of AI-based tools that improve transparency, accuracy, and user experience in dispute resolution. According to the Bengaluru-based company, it is entering both the South African and Australian markets, capitalizing on the surging demand for digital dispute resolution solutions. It has established a strategic partnership with Orington & Partners, an Australia-based consulting firm.

FabHotels reports Rs 219 Cr revenue and Rs 5 Cr loss in FY23

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
FabHotels reports Rs 219 Cr revenue and Rs 5 Cr loss in FY23
Medial

Casa2 Stays-owned FabHotels has been keeping itself under the radar for the past couple of years and the firm’s sheer focus on execution appears to have paid off well in the last fiscal year. The 10-year-old company registered 48% growth in its income during FY23 and reduced losses, inching closer to profitability. FabHotels’ revenue from operations spiked to Rs 219 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023 from Rs 148 crore in FY22, its annual financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies show. FabHotels is a chain of budget hotels with more than 600 properties in over 50 cities in India. Revenue from bookings formed 75% of the firm’s total operating collection which grew by 30.2% year-on-year to Rs 164 crore in FY23. The rest of the income came from sales and marketing fees. The company also has an income of Rs 12 crore from non-operating activities. Head to TheKredible for a detailed revenue breakup. The cost of accommodation formed 59% of the overall expenditure which increased by 30.8% to Rs 140 crore in FY23 from Rs 107 crore in FY22. Its employee benefits, commissions, brokerage, website development, legal/professional, and other overheads pushed FabHotels’ total cost by 47.5% to Rs 236 crore in FY23. Check TheKredible for a complete expense breakdown. The notable growth in scale and controlled cost mechanism helped FabHotels reduce its losses by 16.7% to a mere Rs 5 crore in FY23. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin improved to -33% and -1.7% respectively. On a unit level, the firm spent Rs 1.08 to earn a rupee in FY23. FY22-FY23 FY22 FY23 EBITDA Margin -4% -1.7% Expense/₹ of Op Revenue ₹1.08 ₹1.08 ROCE -40% -33% FabHotels has raised $65 million across rounds and was last valued at around $141 million. According to data intelligence platform TheKredible, Accel is the largest external shareholder with 21.39% followed by Goldman Sachs and Panthera Growth Partners which command 20.52% and 10.64% respectively. Its co-founders Vaibhav Aggarwal and Adarssh Mnpuria together own 25.84%. FabHotels directly competes with Oyo, Treebo and several mid-segment independent chains. IPO-bound Oyo posted a revenue of Rs 5,464 crore in the last fiscal year while its losses stood at Rs 1,286 crore. Accor-funded Treebo Hotels reported Rs 89 crore income and Rs 3.6 crore loss during the fiscal year ending March 2023. Small is beautiful acquires a whole new meaning to FabHotels and its improving financials. The firm has had to build and survive challenges like the pandemic the hard way, and deserves credit for making it this far. Without the benefit of a generous backer like Softbank, Fabhotels has clearly made every rupee sweat harder to get where it has. With enough headroom for growth with its model, we believe the firm will see much better days ahead.

Download the medial app to read full posts, comements and news.