Gaurav Kumar, the CEO and founder of the fintech unicorn Yubi (formerly CredAvenue), has contributed Rs 250 crore ($30 million) in equity capital to his startup. This represents one of the biggest investments a founder has made in a tech company in recent memory.
In August 2024, the Yubi board approved this equity round.
In 2017, Kumar and Vineet Sukumar founded Vivitri, a non-banking financial company (NBFC). After three years together, they co-founded Yubi, a lending company.
Every phase of the money flow—from lenders to borrowers and back to lenders—is facilitated by Yubi’s technological infrastructure, risk assessment, and collection platforms. The company states that it has assisted more than 17,000 businesses, 6,200 investors, and lenders with debt volumes totalling more than Rs. 1,40,000 crores.
Following a $135 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, Dragoneer Investment Group, and B Capital Group, Yubi became a unicorn in March 2022. Following a secondary sale, its valuation reached $1.5 billion last year.
Yubi added new $26 million employee stock options to its roster last month. The entire ESOP plan for the company was valued at $70 million.
The practice of founders investing in their own startups is becoming more common in 2024. Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of Oyo, recently invested $100 million in the business alone through Patient Capital, his Singapore-based company. Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, the co-founders of EV company Ather Energy, contributed $10 million to the business. Previously, the founders of the edtech company Byju’s and the mobility company BluSmart also raised a sizable sum of money.
