Biography
Neel Juriasingani is the co-founder of Datacultr, a fintech startup opening credit access for underbanked populations across emerging markets. The company operates in 31 countries and raised $1M in seed funding in 2022. Neel sports over a decade of experience in telecommunications at Bharti Airtel and Nokia.
Disclaimer: Sturgeon Capital invested in Datacultr. Robin Butler, a partner at Sturgeon, is an investor (in a personal capacity) in The Realistic Optimist. He has had no oversight over this article.
What problem are you solving?
In 2021, around 1.4B people worldwide lacked access to a bank account, meaning they remain excluded from formal credit. Access to credit is contingent on one having a credit score and traditional collateral, which many of these people don’t have.
This challenge is particularly acute in emerging markets, where vast populations work in the informal economy, lack documented income streams, and have no credit history to demonstrate creditworthiness.
Consider a carpenter in rural India who earns daily wages in cash. Despite being financially responsible, they have no salary slips, bank statements, or tax returns to prove their ability to repay loans. Traditional banks view such customers as high-risk, creating a vicious cycle: without access to credit, these individuals can never build the credit history needed to access larger loans in the future.
Datacultr's mission is to break this cycle by enabling financial institutions to extend first loans to previously unbankable customers, helping them establish formal credit histories and graduate to larger financial products over time.
Since launching in 2020, Datacultr has powered over 20 million loans. The platform now facilitates over 1 million new loans monthly through 350,000+ retail touchpoints.
But Datacultr doesn’t loan money itself. What’s the product’s ethos?
Indeed, Datacultr doesn't lend money directly. Instead, we provide technology that enables banks and financial institutions to offer microloans using smartphones (and other devices) as collateral.
How does it work?
On the customer side:
- An unbanked customer visits a partner retail store wanting to purchase a smartphone on credit.
- The store owner or the lender’s agent conducts lightweight KYC verification (using systems like India's Aadhaar) to confirm identity and address.
- If approved, and post the customer’s consent, Datacultr's unremovable app is installed on the device before handover.
- The smartphone becomes virtual collateral, allowing the bank to remotely disable the device if payments are missed.
On the tech side:
The Datacultr app transforms high-value devices into smart collateral while providing banks with powerful tools to:
- Educate first-time borrowers about credit responsibilities through in-app guidance.
- Facilitate timely communication with borrowers via direct device notifications.
- Implement graduated interventions for late payments, from gentle reminders to device restrictions.
- Detect fraud patterns through behavioral analytics and real-time monitoring.
This approach addresses the fundamental challenge in emerging market lending: providing security for lenders while building credit histories for borrowers.
Source: UIDAI Annual Report 2022-23
Does Datacultr handle collections?