Delhi based fintech startup Cardback shuts down owing to fund crunch

Founded in 2012, Delhi-based online platform for loyalty cardholders Cardback has shutdown, owing to fund crunch and less demand in India for multiple credit cards.

Funded by prominent angel investors such as Rajan Anandan, Sunil Kalra, and Alok Mittal, Cardback was a platform for credit, debit and loyalty cardholders to check rewards.

The startup was co-founded by Nidhi Gurnani and Nikhil Wason who have moved on to jobs in the private sector. Gurnani confirmed the shutdown to Moneycontrol. 

The company had raised USD 170K during its five year journey.

“The market we were targeting was not mature enough in India as most people in the country do not have multiple credit cards,” said Gurnani.

The platform recommended the best credit card or wallet to pay for a particular service or product.

India has just about 27 million credit cards in circulation compared to about 740 million debit cards.

In comparison, there are over 200 million e-wallet holders in the country, as a result of demonetization.

“The kind of investor ecosystem in India was not suitable for product like ours which needed deep pockets to educate customers in safety and security of our products,” Gurnani added.

Rivals raised huge pile of money, deal talks fail

The company tried to move headquarters to Singapore, a country where multiple credit card culture exists. However the plans failed with talks with a large investor falling out.

That’s when the co-founders decided to call it a day.

Gurnani has joined social time bank Hour Village. Nikhil Wason has moved on to work with expat lending platform Stilt as head of its India operations.

CardBack was one of the first such fintech product in the space in India. It’s Pune based rival Walnut, which started in 2014 has managed to raise USD 9 million from investors such as Sequioa Capital and SAIF Partners.

Personal finance assistant MoneyView started in 2014 has managed to raise over USD 8.5 million from Accel and Tiger Global.

"Most startups in this (personal finance management) space are yet to find their right target segment and revenue model," Gurnani added.

Joseph.Sebastian@nw18.com