LXME, a women-focused neobanking business, raised $1.2 million (INR 10 crore) in a seed fundraising round led by Kalaari Capital under its CXXO initiative.
A number of other investors participated in the round, including Singularity Ventures’ founder and chief investment officer Yash Kela; Amaya Ventures; Capri Holdings; Aditi Kothari, vice chairwoman of DSP Asset Managers; Vivek Vig, Sumit Jalan, and Avinash Pahuja, among others.
Founded by Harvard Business School graduate Priti Rathi Gupta, the Mumbai-based business will use the new funding to extend its market reach and product offerings.
Furthermore, the revenues will be used to grow brands, acquire users across India, and improve the technology and product stack.
“I am overjoyed and genuinely moved to announce a significant milestone in our journey at Lxme. “We successfully closed $1.2 million in our first round of funding.” Gupta stated in a LinkedIn post.
LXME, which was founded in 2021, targets the middle-income category and helps women better manage their finances. The site includes traditional neobank features such as investment and insurance products, financial planning tools, and financial literacy classes. It also offers financial education to assist women make better financial decisions and connects them to a community of over 400K women.
It claims over 100,000 downloads and 30 million+ content views throughout a community of 4,000+ women. It also intends to increase the number of women on its platform to more than ten million in the next five years.
According to Vani Kola, managing director of Kalaari Capital, “LXME’s dedication to financial literacy and inclusion for women perfectly aligns with the core values of Kalaari and CXXO.”
Kalaari Capital established the CXXO project in 2021 to educate, empower, and invest in rising female entrepreneurs. CXXO empowers female founder-CEOs through three pillars: financing, community, and coaching.
According to the LXME and Women Money Power 2022 research, just 8 million of the 560 million women with bank accounts invest, and only 1% do it independently. Women confront barriers to wealth accumulation, credit access, and venture capital, with 65% without health insurance. LXME aspires to bridge these gaps by providing women with access to a transformative financial platform.
It competes against Groww, Zerodha, and others.
Digital lending has become a profitable business option for India’s fintech companies. According to Inc42’s ‘State of Indian Fintech Report Q4 2023’, the country’s lending tech opportunity is anticipated to be worth $1.3 trillion by 2030.
