Fintech Startup Tartan Raises $4.5 Million In Funding From 500 Global, Others

On Monday, the startup for payroll and workforce management Tartan announced that it has raised $4.5 million in funding from Quant Fund, InfoEdge Ventures, and 500 Global (formerly 500 Startups), which is sponsored by Naval Ravikant. Other investors included Naveen Kukreja, the co-founder of Paisabazaar, WorldQuant Ventures, Varanium GenNext Fund, 9Unicorns, Yatra Angel Network, and Emphasis Ventures (EMVC).

The company said in a statement on Monday that it will use the funds to increase its internal engineering team, scale up its go-to-market operations, and improve its product line. Additionally, it intends to increase its staff size to 110 people. With this transaction, the company has now secured almost $6 million in equity funding altogether.

Founded in June 2021, Tartan offers financial institutions a white-labelled application programming interface (API) suite that allows them to access their customers payroll data with their permission in order to confirm their income and employment status. Employers and HR management software providers may now offer financial benefits including earned wage access (EWA), salary-linked loans, credit card limit monitoring, and emergency money through the Batik employee benefits marketplace, which was just launched.

According to Pramey Jain, CEO and co-founder of Tartan, "With our most recent round closely following our seed investment, we're more focused on our social purpose-driven objective to open up access to financial services and products for millions of individuals in the workforce." Since its debut, Tartan says that it has expanded the reach of its data connectivity to more than 20 million white-collar workers and gig workers in India. Since its launch, its platform has handled 150,000 API calls per month, the company claimed.

"The next wave of innovation in the fintech environment is being driven by Tartan's API, which unleashes the power of income and employment data. Everyone who receives a salary or labour charge is intended to be impacted by Tartan. Tartan is in a unique position thanks to this enormous possibility and the company's goal of developing a larger data and distribution platform, according to 500 Global CEO and Founding Partner Christine Tsai. The business collaborates with more than 80 clients and partners, including banks, fintech lending platforms, credit bureaus, insurance companies, and staffing firms.