Klub, a fintech startup announced the close of its $2 million pre-seed round. Klub provides growth capital to high-affinity brands across sectors like F&B, direct-to-consumer brands in fashion, lifestyle, and FMCG, and consumer internet brands.
The startup was recently named part of the second cohort of Surge, Sequoia Capita India's rapid scale-up program. The institutional investors in this round include EMVC Fintech Fund, Better Capital, Tracxn Labs, and 9Unicorns.
Klub utilizes data-driven analytics and community engagement to provide financing to loved brands with high customer engagement. Headquartered in Singapore, Klub is building their platform for the India market initially, while aiming for a pan-Asia presence.
The founders of Klub come from diverse operational backgrounds. Anurakt Jain, who graduated from IIT Delhi and Wharton, was an intrapreneur at InMobi building Glance and TruFactor and also has had stints as an investor with Vertex and DFJ. Ishita Verma, who has a background in economics from Lady Shri Ram and an MBA from IIM Bangalore, was previously with Snyder UAE and has worked as an investment banker with Unitus Capital, and in institutional equities at Kotak.
The startup’s early team comprises IIT, IIM, and NIT alumni, with deep fintech domain experience across organisations like Flexiloans, InCred, Credit Suisse, SRI Capital, Fullerton, Northern Arc, and Brand Capital.
Klub is in stealth mode and is doing limited pilots with select brands, including some international ones entering India.
Nearly 40 marquee angels also participated in the round through AngelList including Naveen Tewari and Piyush Shah of InMobi, Kunal Shah of Cred, Rajesh Yabaji of Blackbuck, Ramakant Sharma of Livspace, Amit Gupta of Yulu, Shailendra Singh of MarketsandMarkets, Nipun Mehra, formerly of Pine Labs, Nitin Sharma of InCrypt, founders of EzCred, Nishant Verman of Flipkart, and Shradha Sharma of YourStory among others.