Fintech startup Bueno Finance has merged with BetterPlace amid a funding winter, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Founded by Saurav Gandhi and Sandeep Arora in 2019, Bueno provides loans to blue-collar workers. As part of American start-up accelerator Y-Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch, the Gurugram-based startup raised about $3 million in total funding from Goat Capital, JAM Fund, Olive Tree Capital, Good Water Capital, and angel investors like Kunal Shah and Anupam Mittal.
On the other hand, BetterPlace is a blue-collar workforce management company founded by Pravin Agarwala and Uday Singh in 2015. The Bengaluru-based firm has raised about $80 million in total equity from the likes of Macquarie Capital, Site Capital Partners, Jungle Ventures, British International Investment, among others.
Both Bueno Finance and BetterPlace operate in the same segment catering to blue-collared workforce and count food delivery companies such as Swiggy and Zomato as their clients.
“Bueno Finance was not able to raise funds and BetterPlace has been looking to get into lending. Hence, this acquisition,” the person told Mint.
Gandhi, after repeated calls and a WhatsApp message sent to him seeking comments on the deal, said he cannot comment on this development.
An email query sent to BetterPlace has remained unanswered till the filing of this report.
Bueno’s another co-founder Sandeep Arora had quit the firm last year “following a disagreement with Saurav Gandhi and investor Goat Capital,” VCCircle reported last year citing sources.
“The disagreement stemmed from the company’s inability to onboard clients, which led to difficulty in raising funds,” the report added.
BetterPlace has been on an acquisition spree since last two years. It has acquired several startups, including OLX People, AasaanJobs, Oust Labs, Waah Jobs, OkayGo, and EzeDox. This year, the company marked its foray into the South East Asia market with two back-to-back acquisitions that include, Indonesia-based company MyRobin and Malaysia-based flexi talent solutions technology player Troopers.
