Fintech and Big Data analytics startup Goals101 has raised a Pre-Series A funding of $3.5 million from Nexus Venture Partners. With this round of funding, Nexus becomes a significant minority stakeholder in Goals101. Goals101 was started about 2 years ago by Visham Sikand along with Co-Founders & Core Team members Milan Naik (ex-Country Head, Liberty Videocon General Insurance), Ishank Joshi (ex-Account Head, Applied Mobile Labs), Anshuman Pandey (ex-CTO & Co-Founder, Ziffi.com) & Anupam Bhat (ex-Finance Director, Airtel Africa).
The Founding Team was boosted by the entry of Raghunandan Mohapatra (ex-Global Head Digital Sales Design, Standard Chartered Bank – Global), Shyam Ramamurthy (ex-Global Head of Engineering, Yahoo.com), Jubin Mehta (ex-Executive Director, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia) and Sankat Mochan Chauhan (ex-Mu Sigma).
Visham Sikand said, “We partnered with Nexus as they understand the metrics of this business & have a global view on their investments. The last two years of working with superbly talented minds across our Banking Partners has been fabulous. Post the round, which was a couple of months ago, the company has expanded heavily on its technology & data science capabilities and has also expanded to other potent geographies namely Malaysia, UAE, Qatar, South Africa and Kenya.”
Sameer Brij Verma, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners said, “We believe that Goals101 is a technology disrupter redefining next generation intelligent banking powered by transaction behaviour, location and social intelligence. Given the team and technology combination at Goals101, it's not surprising that they have already made a mark in six countries with several banks in a matter of only two years. We are excited to partner them as they embark on their next phase of expansion and growth.”
With the launch of its Custom Designed Bank Platform ‘Alpha for Banks', the company intends to make the entire banking journey far more Personalised, Automated and Delightful. Goals101 today has partnerships across 21 leading Banking Partners in Asia and solves multitude of user cases. The used case for each partner has been proven and its now working towards deeper integrations.
Visham Sikand, an alumnus of the Harvard Business School, is on his 3rd start-up, after 2 very successful boot-strapped entrepreneurial stints. His previous company was acquired by Aetna Inc. (a Fortune 50 company), post which he was their Chairman in India.
Indian fintech sector was approximately $33 billion in 2016 and is slated to reach $73 billion in 2020. It is constantly growing with the ever-changing ecosystem of customer expectations and regulators. And with such digital transformations, the banking services have seen a shift from the traditional brick-and-mortar model to a greater virtual presence. It's the turning point that has impacted the entire ecosystem of the banking industry by redefining the modes of interactions.
