This fintech soonicorn hires a BITS Pilani alumnus too boost its engineering strength

• TIFIN, a fintech startup with a valuation of $842 million, is doubling down on hiring from India as it builds out its engineering team.
  
• The company just hired BITS Pilani alumnus Arun Gautam to head up its Magnifi team as the vice president of engineering.
  
• TIFIN is looking to hire for multiple roles across all their vertices including investments, data science, human resources, and web3.

TIFIN, a fintech startup backed by the likes of JP Morgan, Franklin Templeton and Hamilton Lane, is betting on Indian talent to power its fintech innovation. The ‘soonicorn’ with a valuation of $842 million has just hired Arun Gautam as its VP of engineering to lead the company’s Magnifi team – one of TIFIN’s two major divisions.

The company’s other division is a B2B arm that works with wealth advisors and enterprises that provide financial services to consumers. Within both its divisions, TIFIN operates a suite of products, some of which are homegrown and others which came to the platform through acquisitions.

Gautam’s hiring, specifically, comes after TIFIN’s acquisition of 1st Main, a digital product agency. He will be working with the co-founders of 1st Main, Kinnari Thakker and Kiran Nambiar, who have been signed on as the chief design officer and chief technology officer at Magnifi, respectively.

“TIFIN’s vision is in line with my own – to challenge the bounds of the traditional and approach with a curiosity of how transformational good design and thoughtful tech can be,” said Arun Gautam, VP of engineering at Magnifi by TIFIN.

Gautam is an alumnus of INSEAD and BITS Pilani. He worked for Aviva and found his own fintech startup called BaanMoney.com. Most recently, he was the chief technology officer at Goodera – a startup that helps employees to volunteer with thousands of nonprofits in over 100 countries.

TIFIN’s India expansion plans

Currently, TIFIN has 120 employees in India. Gautam’s appointment is a part of the company’s plan to aggressively hire for multiple roles that span across investments, data science, human resources (HR), web3 and other key engineering teams this year.

“We are delighted to have Arun join us. His penchant for creating, bringing to market, and managing business and financial technology as well as designing and building underlying technical infrastructure and platforms for creating such products will be an asset to all of us. We are excited to be unlocking new growth opportunities with him,” said Kiran Nambiar, CTO of TIFIN India.

Doubling down on hiring in India is part of TIFIN’s plan for the recently raised $109 million from its series-D round of funding. In the last eighteen months, across Series A, B, C and D funding rounds, the company has raised a sum total of $204 million.

TIFIN’s investors include JP Morgan, Franklin Templeton, Hamilton Lane, Morningstar, Broadridge and Motive Partners.
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