Fintech start-up Tortoise, which offers Save Now Buy Later (SNBL) facility, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Sriharsha Majety, co-founder & CEO of Swiggy and Lizzie Chapman, co-founder & CEO of fintech ZestMoney as part of the “mentors round” of funding.

Earlier this year, the start-up had raised around $2.3 million, in a seed round of funding from Vertex Ventures, a part of global investment firm Temasek.

Interestingly, the latest round is an extension of the seed round though it is being referred to as “mentors round”. The start-up has got funding from two well-known founders of the start-up world who can help Tortoise put in place a strategy for faster growth.

“This round is our mentors round, where we are raising angel cheques from category-defining leaders like Lizzie and Sriharsha and expect a few more such visionaries to join in,” said Vardhan Koshal, co-founder of Tortoise.

“We are well capitalised from our seed round and hence this is less about the investment and more about access to such inspirational leaders,” added Koshal.

Tortoise was co-founded in 2020 by Koshal and Surya Harsha Nunnaguppala. Recently, Nikhil Joy, a former vice president of ZestMoney, also joined the start-up as a co-founder.

The start-up allows users to save for large purchases and rewards them for those savings. Users can make small deposits spread over a few months to a year for a particular purchase on the Tortoise app while being assured of cashbacks up to Rs 10,000 on the purchase.

“Consumerism in India is on the rise and so is the aspiration among consumers to upgrade their lifestyles. However, not all consumers want to or have the capability to pay upfront for large ticket purchases. Besides this, over 93 percent of Indians do not have access to formal credit and in such scenarios SNBL is the best alternative,” says Koshal.
Source: BusinessToday
#Swiggy #ZestMoney