Refyne, an earned wage access (EWA) solution provider, on Wednesday said it has raised USD 16 million (about Rs 116.7 crore) in funding from partners of DST Global, RTP Global and others. Existing investors, including QED Investors, Jigsaw VC and XYZ Capital also joined the Series A funding round. The company had raised USD 4.1 million in seed funding in December last year. Refyne partners with organisations to provide a plug-and-play software that allows the latter’s employees to access their real-time earned salary.
Explaining the concept of EWA, Refyne CEO and co-founder Chitresh Sharma said employees can withdraw a portion of their salary accrued till the said day of the month. For example, the employee will be able to withdraw 30-70 per cent of the 10 days’ worth of salary accrued on the 11th day of the month.
This helps employees access funds from their own salary without turning to money lenders or seeking loans, he told PTI.
The wellness solution is free for organisations and integrates with their existing human resource management system (HRMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) service. Employees using the facility pay a fee for the service.
Talking about the fund raise, Sharma said having amazing stakeholders onboard helps the company move faster and stronger.
“The funding will be deployed to expand the technology team and scale growth initiatives. Over a short period of five months, we have partnered with almost 100 companies with over 300,000 employees in India and aim to expand this to cover two million employees and 300 companies in the next 16-18 months,” he said.
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Some of Refyne’s partners include CARS24, Rebel Foods, Cafe Coffee Day, Hira Group, Chai Point and Wow! Momos.
Sharma said Refyne is currently working with two NBFCs to finance the transactions, and will soon apply for its own NBFC licence.
