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Venture Catalysts, a startup incubator and early-stage investment platform, led the $1.8-million seed funding round in Lorien Finance, a cross-border fintech platform offering banking and lending products to immigrants moving to the US.
Started in 2021, Lorien Finance offers collateral-free education loans to Indian students at interest rates starting from 8.5 per cent. There are no additional charges such as forex conversion fees, prepayment penalties, and so on.
On leading the seed round funding, Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “Pursuing education abroad has become a common aspiration amongst today’s youth, but more often than not, students face critical hindrances in achieving the objective of studying abroad. By providing opportunities for students to open accounts in US banks, and enabling easy access to credit for immigrants, Lorien Finance is delivering a novel impact to the future development of millions of students. We are enthralled to partner with them in this journey, and look forward to leveraging our network to help the team grow and succeed.”
The platform enables those seeking an overseas education to get a loan and open a US bank account from India. It plans to expand its services to Southeast Asia, South America and Africa.
Nikhil Mudgal, Founder of Lorien Finance, said, “I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to our investors for their continued support and trust in Lorien’s vision. As we look ahead, our focus is on diversifying our product offerings and entering new markets to ensure sustainable growth and to fulfil the vision of empowering Indian students financially across North America and Europe.”
Other investors involved in this round include TSM Ventures, Kunal Shah (Founder at Cred), Suhail Sameer (former CEO, BharatPe), Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta (founders at boAt), Brijesh Agrawal (co-founder, IndiaMart), and Yaser Moustafa (CEO, NBK).
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