This startup has a solution for other startups suffering from funding slowdown

• StrideOne, which recently raised ₹250 crore as both equity from Elevar Equity and debt from banks, hopes other startups would follow its example.
• The tech-powered digital lender which received its NBFC license last year, believes that the time is ripe for their debt-based solutions.
• “When there is concentration of equity around all the time, that’s what is running in their minds all the time. It will create a large awareness of debt products,” Abhinav Suri, the co-founder of StrideOne.

While most startups are feeling the heat of a funding winter, Delhi-based startup StrideOne sees an opportunity to tap an ecosystem largely untouched by traditional finance. The tech-powered digital lender which received its NBFC license last year, believes that the time is ripe for their debt-based solutions as capital is expected to remain scarce for the next three-four quarters.

“This ripple effect (of a funding slowdown) will be felt across the startup ecosystem. We are a startup focussed institution and this provides us with an opportunity to offer our off-balance sheet solutions to them,” Ishpreet Singh Gandhi, co-founder, StrideOne told Business Insider India.

The end-to-end digital solutions company also acquired EdCred platform, a SaaS company to improve its technology capabilities which will allow them to grow without hiring more people. “We want to remain unit positive,” said Abhinav Suri, co-founder, StrideOne — which recently raised ₹250 crore as both equity from Elevar Equity and debt from banks.

It expects other startups to follow their example. “Some startups also do not want to raise equity at the current valuations but also intend to keep on building the mindspace for their products,” explains Gandhi, who is a former banker like his co-founder Suri.

StrideOne is also at an inflection point where startups might beckon an era of debt. “When there is concentration of equity around all the time, that’s what is running in their minds all the time. It will create a large awareness of debt products,” says Suri.

Paying influencers, FPOs and drivers

Gandhi and Suri are keen on funding companies such as themselves who are unit positive and intend to keep creating value even in a low-capital regime. Yet, their ‘solutions’ are nothing like straight loans offered by banks.

One of their clients is a logistics company with top-tier clients like JSW Steel and Amazon. They need to pay their drivers every month but get paid every 60 days. StrideOne offers solutions that aid the startup like working capital loans but also help them collect from their clients.

MyGlamm is yet another client of theirs which needs to pay its many influencers every month, and StrideOne eases the way their cash flow works and allows a growing company such as them to keep growing.

Since it is MSME and agritech focussed, StrideOne is also helping many unorganized players into the formal economy. “We are working with the silk value chain, and also FMCG players - startups whose vendors go all the way back to farmers producer organizations or FPO who become our borrower,” explains Suri.

Since StrideOne was floated by Strides Ventures, a venture debt fund — it already has access to a pool of startups in need of specialized financing solutions.

“They are plugged into the startup ecosystem which pretty much provides them with zero acquisition cost where they are solving a problem and not pitching sales to them,” says Jyotsna Krishnan, managing partner at Elevar Equity.

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