Fintech startup Zeni gets USD 34 mn from Elevation Capital, others

Pune-based fintech start-up Zeni has raised USD 34 million in a Series-B funding round led by Elevation Capital with participation from new investors. With this, Zeni has raised USD 47.5 million in funding so far from Amit Singhal, who was with Google in the past, Dragon Capital, Elevation Capital, Firebolt Ventures, and Liquid 2 Ventures, among others.

The others include Neeraj Arora, Saama Capital, Sierra Ventures, SVB Financial Group, Think Investments, and Twin Ventures, and prominent angel investors including Manish Chandra, Nickhil Jakatdar, Ed Lu, Anupam Mittal, Gokul Rajaram, and Kunal Shah. While the other new investors include Think Investments and Neeraj Arora of Edu9 fame, existing investors Saama Capital, Amit Singhal, Sierra Ventures, Twin Ventures, Dragon Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures, also infused additional funds.

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The start-up has seen massive growth in revenue and customers base over the last year, it claimed without disclosing the actual numbers. It manages over USD 500 million in funds each month across over 100 start-ups, ranging from pre-revenue start-ups to businesses generating more than USD 100 million in annual revenue, it said in a statement on Thursday. Zeni co-founder and Chief Executive Swapnil Shinde said the firm will use the funds to bring its intelligent bookkeeping and accounting platform and services to more customers by investing aggressively in its team in the US and India across products, technology, marketing, sales and finance operations.

Its co-founder and Chief Product Officer Snehal Shinde said the firm is among the few bookkeeping and accounting platform that provides real-time insights and flux analysis of a company’s key financial metrics via its AI-powered tools, including cash-in and cash-out analysis. With the investment, Ravi Adusumalli, founder and managing partner of Elevation Capital will join the Zeni board. Founded in 2019 by the twin brothers and serial entrepreneurs Swapnil and Snehal Shinde, Zeni is the among the first AI-powered finance concierge for start-ups.

Earlier, they had also founded Mezi, the AI-powered travel assistant, acquired by American Express in 2018. Elevation is a leading venture capital firm that provides seed and early stage capital for emerging companies. Founded in 2002, Elevation is investing from its seventh fund now and has over USD 2 billion under management. It was an early investor and partner to founders of Acko, Firstcry, Justdial, Makemytrip, Meesho, Nobroker, Paytm, Sharechat, Swiggy, Unacademy and Urban Company, among several others.