Datacultr

One of the biggest challenges Unbanked face is that of affordability, even an entry level smartphone is out of bounds, research shows that if the price of the device is more than 2% of a person’s annual income, its unaffordable. Lenders similarly face large challenges that of high perceived risk & high servicing costs

datacultr begins the credit journey for ‘new to credit, by enabling lenders to provide financing/Pay-on-demand option to own a Smartphone. 

This solves:

• Credit Approval: Smartphone Collateralization, by Datacultr, becomes a critical factor for the lender in absence of alternate data
• Repayment: Datacultr ensures payments are not missed, sets a habit, works on ‘Intention to Pay’

As the device is used and repayments made, the individual starts to establish a digital transaction history, which is leveraged for making other financing solutions accessible, such as credit, savings, insurance, etc thus providing upward mobility to unbanked

2Bn+ people & 200Mn+ small businesses the world over remain excluded from the fold of formal credit because of various reasons, primary being lack of credit scores & collaterals that can be given out as a security. This happens because majority of this population is not in the organised sector, a miniscule of them pay taxes & its impossible to get their business & income data. In such a scenario, a very small population has access to formal credit, since financial institutions are unable to assess risk and thus unable to cater to this segment. The world over around 33% adult population is covered by credit bureaus, another 5% have a digital footprint that’s credible and can be used for building a risk profile, the balance 62% are ‘Credit Dark’ who lack any digital footprint, assets &/or financial knowhow

These people, who earn less than $5/day, a majority under $2/day, understand the utility of internet and smartphones, but are unable to purchase a device and unable to get micro-credit so that they can pay-off for the device in smaller instalments

Datacultr allows lending companies to significantly reduce their risk on unbanked customers, by converting their smartphones into a virtual collateral. A smartphone is a high value utility for most low & middle income people and hence is a smart choice of a collateral. 

Datacultr allows the lender to influence repayments, via AI-driven interventions, that help:

• Educate these first time borrowers
• Communicate & Remind
• Intervene & nudge in cases of defaults, nudges include, gradual impairment of the device functionality, including:
  • Wallpaper reminders
  • Blocking Apps or feature
  • Device Lock

The platform’s fraud prediction module provides alerts/triggers to the lender, that indicate fraud or unusual behaviour, with tools to take real-time action, significantly impacting default rates & NPAs.

Datacultr has built a strong ecosystem, through partnerships that help build a world-class platform, partners include Android, Samsung, Vivo, Huawei, Microsoft, Nokia, among others.

Datacultr has won awards like Red Herring Top100 Asia, NASSCOM Emerge 50, Economic Times BFSI Innovation Award and a Certificate of Excellence from Government of Haryana, India

Datacultr’s investors include Dubai Fintech Ventures (consortium of Visa, Mashreq Bank & DIFC) and Seedstars and well supported by Startupbootcamp, Village Capital, PlugnPlay & AWS Activate.

The solution is directly targeted towards solving the challenges that lending companies face while lending to the unbanked. These people work in the unorganized sector, women, people who migrate for jobs, within & outside their countries of origin. Datacultr works with NBFIs, MFIs, Banks, Telecom operators, Fintechs & Off-grid power companies, that have developed physical & digital infrastructure that expands to people in small towns and rural areas.

Datacultr works very closely with these lending and Pay-As-You-Go companies as well as not for profits like the GSMA, Gates foundation & Women’s World Banking, to understand the needs of these people and the challenges that they face. Datacultr runs multiple experiments at various levels to solve for such needs & challenges, including consumer behaviour around language, messaging, communication channels, time of day, nudges, etc, this ensures the product is continuously improving and able to deliver on its promise of low delinquencies, NPAs & costs.

The solution is able to provide access to credit, to these unbanked people, thus far over 180,000 and growing

Device affordability is among the basic challenges that the digitally excluded face, majority of them understand the utility of internet, its positive impacts and how it helps them access government services/subsidies and financial services. Research done by GSMA shows, these people who live under $5/day and mostly under $2/day are unable to afford a smartphone, even a $35 phone, which is more than 2% of their annual earning, hence falling below the primary need of food & shelter. These people however confirmed, if made affordable by allowing them to pay in smaller monthly instalments, they will buy these devices.

Datacultr is live in India, Bangladesh & Malaysia and has pilots ongoing in Pakistan, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania & Nigeria.

Datacultr has secured over 180k loans in the last 9 months, amounting to a loan value of US$30Mn and the platform has been able to bring down NPAs by 67%; collection costs by 70% and increased approval rates among ‘new to credit’ by 10% points.

Datacultr’s clients include India’s largest consumer financing NBFI, top telecom operators in Malaysia, Bangladesh & Africa, among many others

Over 4Bn people across the world neither have a digital footprint nor a financial footprint. They are unable to afford a smartphone and Financial institutions are unable to provide them a small loan to purchase that device. Datacultr believes the solution to this conundrum is in the device itself.

• Smartphones are livelihood & earning enablers for low & mid income groups
• Its a critical asset, sometime the only asset that people have
• They therefore ensure this device keeps working and nothing happens to it

Datacultr begins the credit journey for ‘new to credit, by enabling lenders to provide financing/Pay-on-demand option to own a Smartphone, by collateralising it.

This solves:

• Credit Approval: Smartphone Collateralization, by Datacultr, becomes a critical factor for the lender in absence of alternate data
• Repayment: Datacultr ensures payments are not missed, sets a habit, works on ‘Intention to Pay’

As the device is used and repayments made, the individual starts to establish a digital transaction history, which is leveraged for making other financing solutions accessible, such as credit, savings, investments and insurance, thus providing upward mobility to the unbanked.

With more people with smartphones, they will learn new skills, access bigger markets, improve their earning and gain upward social mobility.

Datacultr with its 2 pronged approach to de-risk the loan and set a habit among these first time borrowers to pay on time, drives both digital and financial inclusion 

Number of People Directly Served, by enabling smartphone loans:

Current: 180,000

1 Year: 2Mn

5 Years: 30Mn

Indicators:

1. Number of Smartphones made affordable via Loans, to 'New to Credit'
2. Number of Smartphones made affordable via Loans, to Women
3. Number of subsequent Loans Provided
4. Non Performing Assets

Full Time: 24

• • Founded by Sujoy Ghosh (CTO) & Neel Juriasingani (CEO)
  • Founders know each other for over 13 years, met while working at airtel
    • Sujoy Ghosh- Work Experience: Newgen Software, Airtel & Blackberry (Technology, New products)
    • Neel Juriasingani- Work Experience: Airtel & Nokia (Sales, Marketing & Strategy)
    • This is their second startup together, the first startup was in the advertising technology space, where the company used to provide Ad serving tech to smartphone manufacturers to open up advertising as a new revenue stream. Top clients included Microsoft, Micromax, Nokia, Karbonn, Gionee, etc

• • The two co-founders, Neel & Sujoy Ghosh know each other for 13+ years, they met at work at India's largest telco Airtel. 
  • The founders have done multiple projects together including a successful Ad-Tech startup before Datacultr. 
  • The founders have extensive experience of building products for the emerging world, ranging from 1st M-commerce service in India & 1st Telco App Store, built at Airtel; to marketing products & services for Nokia & Blackberry in Middle East, Asia & Africa. 
  • The co-founders are well-networked and have great strengths in closing large deals that include enterprises like Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Airtel, Maxis, etc
  • The product technology team is very well experienced, and has built products together as a team for India, Middle east & Africa, they understand very well the smartphone & telecom ecosystems

Datacultr believe that an inclusive & diverse team makes the organisation better and bolder, which is a hallmark of an innovative company, trying to bring a change.

Datacultr's hiring & promotion policy is built on a philosophy of inclusion with no bias on the basis of gender, race, religion or caste. The only deciding factor is impact & metrics

The company's internal target is to have equal representation of women in the team by 2022.

Gain unfair advantage by:

• MIT network of mentors
• Technology knowhow & research performed by faculty & students
• Sustain & Scale through experts & peers
• Access to funds

Datacultr is at a stage, where it is constantly refining it strategy to be more effective & impactful, hence all help around talent, business model, fund raising, legal matters is important.

PR is a very critical component to datacultr's expansion strategy, hence a solid strategy will hit the right metrics for growth.

Technology is at the core of datacultr, with extra emphasis on behavioural sciences and AI, with very limited experienced talent, its a high priority area and MIT's mentorship here will be invaluable

Datacultr has a very clear path to profitability, where expansion of client base is the only way to growth, and MIT's network could be a big differentiator and growth driver

1. MIT Faculty- 
   1. Marketing- to help on branding, PR & marketing strategy
   2. Technology- IOT, AI, ML
   3. Ogranisational Behaviour- to help in setting the right strategy for talent growth & culture
2. Research scholars, in the field of
   1. Data sciences
   2. Emerging markets
   3. Alleviating poverty
3. SOLVE Members- They may be in a similar domain, trying to solve for similar challenges, their first hand experiences will be invaluable as well as open up partnership opportunities

Smartphones the world over have brought in a positive impact to people's lives. Refugees specifically stand to gain, as these devices become tools for information, communication & safety, helping them navigate their migration journeys. Device affordability is a very critical factor among these people, who see an added need for the device, many refer to it as their 'best friend' and 'the most essential'. Datacultr technology can help drive affordability among this segment, helping them survive the tough ordeal of finding their way to safety.

Driving device affordability is one of the biggest ways via which digital Inclusion can be driven. With a cloud based technology, that is agnostic to device brand & model, helps in driving usage in a very democratic way, while addressing the big challenges that financiers face i.e. high perceived risk & high servicing costs.