Yenmo, a platform providing instant loans against mutual funds, announced it has completed its latest funding round, securing $500,000 in investment from Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator Y Combinator.
The funding from Y Combinator is anticipated to play a crucial role in Yenmo’s journey to promote financial inclusion in India.
“We aim to introduce a suite of lending options that were previously accessible only to high net worth individuals, now to every Indian consumer,” said Ashutosh Purohit, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Yenmo.
Yenmo empowers Indian investors to borrow against their investments (such as mutual funds and stocks) at a flat 10.5 per cent interest rate, in less than five minutes. Investors can view all their investments in real-time, select the assets they wish to borrow against, and receive funds directly into their bank accounts. This allows their investments to continue growing for the long term while fulfilling immediate financial needs effortlessly.
“It bothers me to see $30 billion being redeemed every year from equity mutual funds by retail investors to fulfil their short-term needs. With Yenmo, they will no longer have to sell their mutual funds; instead, taking a loan against them is a much better way to keep the investments intact. This approach will help your money grow in the long term while providing access to funds for immediate requirements. The growth in their funds will not only cover their investments but would also end up making them more money,” said Purohit.
Yenmo offers a full-stack API (application programming interface) solution for other companies to integrate loans against mutual funds into their products. It further plans to launch new products like loans against stocks, insurance, digital gold, and land.