Propelld raises Rs 15 crore from Stellaris Venture Partners and India Quotient

Propelld, a fintech startup that enables students to get education loans, has raised Rs 15 crore from Stellaris Venture Partners and India Quotient. Existing investor India Angel Network also participated in the funding round.
Other investors including Raghunandan G, the founder of TaxiForSure, and Ramakant Sharma, the founder of Livspace, participated as part of the members of Stellaris’ Founder Network.
Propelld had raised a seed round of Rs 1.7 crore from IAN in 2018.
Propelld is a lending platform that offers loans to students pursuing vocational training in areas ranging from machine learning to hospitality management. It caters to those who do not have traditional funding avenues.
Propelld has tied up with more than 150 educational institutes across the country and has extended loans to more than 1,500 students so far.
With the latest funding, it plans to increase its base of institutes and students by ten times over the next 18 months.
The company, founded in 2017 by Bibhu Prasad Das, Victor Senapaty and Brijesh Samantaray, creates tailor-made credit products for students looking for credit, in partnership with their lending partners and institutes.
“We are expanding the education credit market by creating tailor-made loan products with inputs from our institute and NBFC partners, so that default risk is identified early and the downside is shared between the stakeholders,” said Das. “We have been able to maintain an excellent portfolio performance through our unique approach to credit underwriting.”
Citing the opportunity that Propelld has in the underserved credit market, Ritesh Banglani, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, said that Propelld uses its algorithms to offer credit to a much wider category of students by predicting their future earnings capacity, making it a suitable player to bridge the funding gap in the sector.