3 days ago
Spense Secures USD 1.85 Mn from GrowthCap Ventures and Industry Leaders
The fresh capital will be deployed to onboard more banks, expand fintech partnerships, and broaden Spense's product and technology stack, enabling new financial use cases beyond secured credit cards.
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Spense, a Bengaluru-based fintech startup building programmable banking and card infrastructure, has raised USD 1.85 million in a pre-seed round led by GrowthCap Ventures.
The round also attracted angel investors including Kunal Shah (Co-founder, CRED), Sayandeb Banerjee (Co-founder, The Math Company), Suresh Rayasam (Head of Applied AI for GTM), and Ravi Sudhakar (Director AI Global Business Strategy, Microsoft).
The fresh capital will be deployed to onboard more banks, expand fintech partnerships, and broaden Spense's product and technology stack, enabling new financial use cases beyond secured credit cards.
Founded in 2023 by Pawan Kumar (former Head of Applied Science, Uber India) and Srinivas Krishnamurthy (former Technical Lead, BNP Paribas), Spense is on a mission to modernise India's credit infrastructure. The company offers APIs and infrastructure for secured credit cards, prepaid cards, and forex programs, tailored for regulated entities looking to launch digital credit products with speed, compliance, and reliability.
"If someone has a fixed deposit, they should be able to get a credit card. It's that simple," said Pawan Kumar, Co-founder and CEO of Spense. "We've proven the model. Now it's time to scale secured credit cards with every bank in India."
He added, "Our job is to make banking work quietly in the background—so people can access what they need, when they need it."
Spense's platform ensures full regulatory oversight, auditability, and seamless legacy system integration, making it ideal for financial institutions looking to innovate responsibly. According to CTO Srinivas Krishnamurthy, the startup is now focused on unlocking more use cases beyond credit cards.
Pratekk Agarwaal, General Partner at GrowthCap Ventures, commented, "Spense is solving one of the most overlooked problems in Indian finance—access. What stood out to us was the team's clarity and deep commitment to building a bank-grade infra that works at scale."
