How a company in Mumbai is facilitating the lives of other startups

A rise in business volume has been observed at GetVantage, a start-up that provides revenue finance to D2C companies and digital platforms as more businesses seek growth capital to finance their expansion over the holiday season. Since the beginning of the current fiscal year, the Mumbai-based start-up has received more than 2,000 applications from firms seeking revenue financing for the holiday season. About 10 to 15 percent of them were eligible for funding through the GetVantage marketplace. A start-up can obtain expansion capital using a process known as revenue-based finance, or RBF, without the founders having to give up any equity or put up any security. The financing is based on the venture's revenues, and the payback is set up as a percentage of the subsequent monthly income.

According to Bhavik Vasa, Founder & CEO of GetVantage, "this time last year we began our Bounce Back campaign to help hundreds of companies get working finance that they need to bounce back from the epidemic.

"In the past quarter, we noticed a noticeable increase in the lead-up to the holiday season, with rising interest from entrepreneurs eager to scale-up and satisfy the spike in customer demand. Nearly three times as many incoming queries were received year over year. In fact, GetVantage has successfully financed and added at least one new company to our portfolio every single day over the past few months, he said.

In 2020, GetVantage was established by financial entrepreneur Vasa and seasoned executive Amit Srivastava.

The start-up offers RBF of up to Rs 10 crore each start-up in less than seven days; in certain cases, payout is completed in less than 48 hours. To date, the start-up has financed a total GMV of more than $220 million and has more than 350 brands in its portfolio.

This gains relevance since, according to a research by Avendus Capital, the direct-to-consumer (D2C) industry in India is predicted to increase at a rate of 25% CAGR from $44.6 billion in FY21 to $100 billion in FY25.

The creator of the food and beverage start-up Malaki, Mohit Bhatia, used RBF because he needed money quickly for a marketing push before the holiday season but didn't want to dilute stock.

“Knowing that equity-free growth capital from GetVantage is just a thought away, I as a founder, have always been relaxed as it places us better in terms of inventory, marketing & sales and has also helped us grow 6x vis-a-vis last year,” said Bhatia. 

“It’s been amazing to watch the growth of RBF globally as more players have emerged around the world, in established and emerging markets. In Europe for example, over 18 new RBF players have emerged over the last 18 months,” added Vasa.