With 50,000 users, fintech startup muvin helps children, young adults gain financial independence
Teen-focused pocket money, digital finance and neobanking apps have been on the rise in the fintech sector over the past year. New companies spring up every month to cater to this previously untapped target market, and the core of their genesis seems to be singular: financial inclusion.
While many fintech companies cater to the adult population as well as geographically marginalized parts of India, there are very few opportunities for teenagers to explore finance. Before the proliferation of teen-focused financial platforms, most of the exposure teens had to finance was through banks that allowed them to open bank accounts operated primarily by parents, or physical currency.
Vineet Gupta and Mukund Raowho both have teenage children, struggled with the existing system.
“Our children’s minor bank accounts, through which we gave them pocket money, had several challenges – from opening to allowing our children to use them freely, given the restrictions on ATMs or debit cards,” says Vineet Your story.
When the duo assessed the situation on the ground, they realized that although the addressable market (TAM) was large, there were only a handful of platforms available to teenagers.
They line up a teenage focused one pocket money app for students and teenagers, which aims to make students financially literate, teach them money management skills and take the complexity out of ‘finance’.
“muvin’s vision is to improve the financial literacy of the 200 million youth in India, while providing them with financial products tailored to their needs,” says Mukund.
The startup raised $3 million in a pre-Series A round led by WaterBridge Ventures in January this year, after raising a $1.5 million-plus seed round from HNIs in the country.
While the youth-focused fintech space has not been fully appreciated yet because it is still in its infancy and taking shape, the sub-sector has disrupted fintech in India, capturing a market that very few cater to. The Indian fintech sector is expected to touch the market size of $150-160 billion by 2025, according to a report by MAAS.
What it does
Bengaluru-based muvin is a downloadable app that can be used by both parents and children. Parents need to download the app, create profiles for their children and then give them access to it.
Parents can use the app to transfer pocket money, set tasks and pay on completion of each task, and can also track their children’s expenses.
Teenagers who use the app, on the other hand, can spend money offline and online via a physical and virtual debit card. UPI and QR based payments are available for those who do a full KYC. Users can also create savings goals for wish lists and put money towards them each month.
The start-up, like most in its sector, included and provides educational short videos and written content to teach teenagers and children about finances and practices related to managing money, such as savings, investing and taxes.
Vineet says that while muvin’s target group is the 10-24 age group, anyone can use the platform.
“We believe that the educational content we offer is relevant not only to our immediate target audience, but to anyone who wants to start their journey in understanding basic economics,” he says.
Business model
The startup currently does not require users to access the platform; instead, it makes money from the interchange fees incurred by merchants for card transactions.
Fampay, arguably the biggest player in the space right now, has an e-commerce platform aimed at its target market – i.e. kids – which is also a source of income for the startup, aside from brokerage fees.
As for revenue, Mukund says, “We are meeting the planned numbers,” but did not further disclose the exact numbers. He added that the app currently has three lakh installs, with 80,000 active wallets that have done their KYC.
In total, the app has 50,000 users. Fampay has crossed one million users, while Junio has over half a million.
The startup says it aims to expand to one million users in the next 12 months and may raise additional capital this year to achieve scale.
