GrowthCap Ventures has announced its continued investment in Bengaluru-based portfolio company Spense, participating in the company's USD 2.8 million Seed round led by Arkam Ventures. The round also included Razorpay Ventures, Atrium Ventures, and a distinguished group of fintech and technology operators such as Kunal Shah (CRED), Madhusudhan E (KreditBee), Ravishankar (Active.ai), Suresh Rayasam Venkatasubbaih (LinkedIn), and Sayandeb Banerjee (The Math Company).
Spense's Asset-Backed Credit Infrastructure
Spense provides a bank-native infrastructure layer that enables banks to transform underutilized assets—including fixed deposits, mutual funds, equities, and invoices—into modern credit products. As India's credit ecosystem evolves beyond unsecured lending, a vast pool of assets remains underutilized within the formal credit system, and Spense addresses this gap by integrating seamlessly with existing banking systems.
The company has already partnered with seven major banks, powers over 2 lakh active cards, issues more than 40,000 cards every month, and contributes to nearly 8% of India's monthly credit card issuance, underscoring the growing demand for modern asset-backed lending infrastructure.
GrowthCap's Continued Support
GrowthCap Ventures was the first institutional investor in Spense, leading the company's pre-seed round in May 2025. The follow-on investment reflects GrowthCap's conviction in both the founders and the emerging opportunity to build the infrastructure powering India's next generation of credit. Pratekk Agarwaal, Founder & General Partner at GrowthCap Ventures, stated: "We invested in Spense at the pre-seed stage because we believed asset-backed credit would become one of the defining themes in financial services. Pawan and Srinivas have demonstrated exceptional clarity of vision and execution, building infrastructure that enables banks to unlock liquidity against assets at scale."
Founders' Vision
Pawan Kumar, Co-founder & CEO of Spense, said: "India's credit challenge is often viewed as a risk problem. We believe it is fundamentally an infrastructure problem. India does not have a shortage of assets. It has a shortage of infrastructure that can convert those assets into usable credit. We believe the next generation of banking will be built on two foundations: infrastructure that unlocks assets and AI that makes credit intelligent, scalable and accessible." Srinivas Krishnamurthy, Co-founder & CTO, added: "For decades, banks digitized accounts, payments and transactions. The next phase of banking is the digitization of collateral itself."
Use of Fresh Capital
The fresh capital will be used to deepen banking partnerships, accelerate product development, expand engineering and go-to-market teams, launch Credit Line on UPI (CLOU), and further build the infrastructure and intelligence layer for the future of asset-backed credit.
About GrowthCap Ventures
GrowthCap Ventures is an operator-led early-stage venture capital firm focused on backing category-defining startups across FinTech, AI and DeepTech. The firm partners with founders from the earliest stages of company building, often as the first institutional investor, providing not only capital but also hands-on operational support, strategic guidance, and access to an extensive network of founders, operators, and enterprise partners.
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