S6 Ep144: Democratizing Education Finance with Bibhu Prasad Das of Propelld

TRANSFIN. LongShorts with Nikhil Arora and Sharath Toopran

We spoke with Bibhu Prasad Das, CEO & Co-founder of Propelld, a Series B funded Bengaluru based fintech specializing in providing personalised education loans to students and families in Tier 2/3 cities.
Propelld bases their lending decisions on selected course’s end-use, deep borrower underwriting, and by taking a partner-led model. Backed by marquee investors such as Westbridge Capital, Stellaris, and India Quotient, the company was founded with the mission to make education financing more accessible and affordable for Indian students.
Propelld leverages technology and ventures deep into its target segment (i.e. supplementary/out of school education and higher education) by collecting alternate data points to determine a student's forward looking capabilities and motivations.
Listen in to this fascinating chat where we touch upon inherent underwriting challenges within education lending, how Propelld has tackled them to unlock the potential of this market as a large-TAM-low loss segment, and the perspective needed by institutional investors looking to take exposure in this space.
Hope you enjoy this TRANSFIN. Podcast with Nikhil Arora and Sharath Toopran, where we converse with entrepreneurs and business operators running successful startups, profitable SMEs and family promoted firms on one end, and top investment professionals representing VC/PE/credit funds on the other.
The objective is to bring out an "actionable" perspective converging the world of business and investing.
If you're a founder and if you'd like us to drill down your model, feel free to drop us a line at [email protected]