Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is in talks to raise capital for his newest Indian fintech startup Navi. Bansal is in talks with investors to raise about $2 billion in a valuation, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. A source said it is seeking between $200 million and $400 million.
Bengaluru-based startup Navi has been largely self-funded until now — Bansal owns 97% of the company — and this would be its first major external fundraiser since its founding in 2018.
Talks have yet to materialize on a deal, so the terms as well as Bansal’s appetite for outside funding could change, the sources warned. A Navi spokesman declined to comment.
Navi, which offers personal loans and mortgages as well as health insurance to customers, has been through some financial upheavals of its own. Navi originally wanted to raise $440 million in a public listing, according to documents it filed in 2022. With the IPO market in a slump, however, the Bengaluru-based startup abandoned those plans last year.
Discussions on funding show a significant shift in the venture market in India as well as an encouraging sign for fintech globally. After a particularly difficult 2023 in which overall startup funding fell by 73% in the country, this could be a signal that growth-stage funding rounds are back on the table.
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADIA is in talks to back Indian audio storytelling platform Pocket FM, TechCrunch reported last month. Indian eyewear brand LensKart, Temasek-backed consumer nutrition platform HealthKart and bike-taxi aggregator Rapido are also in talks to conduct new development stage rounds, India’s Economic Times reported on Thursday. Khazanah, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, is among the investors Swiggy-backed Rapido has partnered with in recent weeks, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
India’s startup ecosystem saw a sharp decline in large funding rounds last year as global investors such as Tiger Global and SoftBank scaled back their investments while domestic VC firms shifted their focus to early-stage companies, according to a recent Bain report.
The Reserve Bank of India’s regulatory actions in recent years have also affected card-issuing and lending startups, further spooking many fintech investors.
Under Bansal, Flipkart has been a pioneer for startups in India, raising billions of dollars from a storied list of strategic and financial investors. He then left the startup in 2018 with a $1 billion windfall and opted for a bootstrapped approach to Navi, which he founded the same year.
Even though this may be Navi’s first external raise, that doesn’t mean Bansal hasn’t spoken to interested parties. As TechCrunch previously reported, the fintech spoke with potential investors, including SoftBank, before the IPO filing. Those discussions stalled after Navi’s application for a banking license was rejected by the country’s central bank, TechCrunch previously reported.
In recent quarters, Navi has narrowed its focus. It sold its microfinance unit Chaitanya India for $178.5 million in August as part of a “strategic plan to focus on our digital business,” Bansal said at the time.
In an interview published by Indian outlet Moneycontrol on Tuesday, Bansal said he would revive plans for the IPO, but only in “a few months, once we’re ready.”
Bansal also did not give up on the idea of turning Navi into a bank. “For now, I’d say we’ve parked them, until we see there’s a possibility again in the future,” he told the Indian outlet. “Then we will pick it up again when the green light is given by the regulator at the right time.”
