GrowthCap Ventures was the first institutional investor in Spense, having led the company's pre-seed funding round in May 2025. Its latest follow-on investment reflects continued confidence in the company's founders and its vision of developing the infrastructure that will support the next generation of India's credit ecosystem.
As India's financial sector moves beyond unsecured lending, a significant volume of assets, including fixed deposits, mutual funds, equities, invoices, and other financial assets, remains underutilized within the formal credit system. Spense addresses this gap by providing a bank-native infrastructure platform that enables banks to transform these assets into modern credit products through seamless integration with existing banking systems.
The company has already partnered with leading banking institutions to introduce secured credit cards and credit lines backed by customer-owned assets. At present, Spense works with seven major banks, powers more than 200,000 active credit cards, issues over 40,000 new cards every month, and contributes nearly eight percent of India's monthly credit card issuance, demonstrating strong demand for modern asset-backed lending infrastructure.
The newly raised capital will be deployed to strengthen banking partnerships, accelerate product development, expand engineering and go-to-market teams, launch Credit Line on UPI, and further enhance the infrastructure and intelligence layer supporting the future of asset-backed credit.
Pawan Kumar, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spense, said India's credit challenge is fundamentally an infrastructure issue rather than a risk issue. He stated that while the country has no shortage of valuable assets, it lacks the infrastructure required to convert those assets into accessible credit. According to him, the next generation of banking will be built on infrastructure that unlocks assets and artificial intelligence that makes credit more intelligent, scalable, and accessible, ensuring that individuals with valuable assets can obtain modern credit facilities.
Srinivas Krishnamurthy, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Spense, said banks have spent decades digitizing accounts, payments, and transactions, and the next phase of banking will focus on the digitization of collateral itself.
Pratekk Agarwaal, Founder and General Partner of GrowthCap Ventures, said the firm invested in Spense during its pre-seed stage because it believed asset-backed credit would become one of the defining sectors in financial services. He said Pawan Kumar and Srinivas Krishnamurthy have demonstrated exceptional vision and execution by building infrastructure that enables banks to unlock liquidity against assets at scale. He also welcomed Arkam Ventures and the other investors while expressing confidence in supporting the company as it develops the future of banking infrastructure in India.
GrowthCap Ventures is an operator-led early-stage venture capital firm focused on supporting category-defining startups across financial technology, artificial intelligence, and deep technology. The firm partners with founders from the earliest stages of company development, often becoming the first institutional investor while providing strategic guidance, operational support, product strategy, customer introductions, hiring assistance, fundraising support, and access to an extensive network of founders, operators, and enterprise partners.
The continued investment in Spense reflects GrowthCap Ventures' long-term strategy of identifying high-potential startups at an early stage and supporting them through successive phases of growth. Spense's successful funding round further strengthens its position as a key player in building the next generation of India's banking and asset-backed credit infrastructure, while reinforcing investor confidence in the company's ability to transform how financial assets are converted into accessible credit.
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