Amid the news of ZestMoney, a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) firm shutting down its operations this month (December, 2023), the company has received an acquisition offer from Ashwin Bhambri, founder of micro-lending startup KreditPE over LinkedIn.
In an open letter to ZestMoney on LinkedIn, Bhambri said, “Dear Lizzie, Priya, Ashish all Employees and Investors at Zestmoney: We have utmost RESPECT for what you built and the IMPACT you created at ZESTMoney. We heard the news and feel ZestMoney is too good to shut down. We (at KreditPE) love the product and would like to propose acquiring ZestMoney and run-it. We firmly believe we’ll make it 100 time smore successful than PhonePe.”
Explaining what he is offering to the company, the founder of KreditPE said they are offering a simple sachet loan and credit-line on top of a UPI-Wallet service and focusing on but not limited to New to Credit (NTC) users.
Here is the core of Bhambri’s offer for ZestMoney:
- Would like to merge and run ZestMoney with KreditPE
- Reviving ZestMoney is going to take innovation and frugality and KreditPE excels at it, as per the LinkedIn post
“Our strategy is to make available consumer-durable finance to users who are vetted on KrediPE and while BNPL is sexy slow and steady is the only sure way to disburse and collect credit,” Bhambri added.
He further stated that he officially expresses interest in merging and running ZestMoney and is keen to connect with the decision makers.
It can be known that several media reports have been stating that ZestMoney will shut down and lay off the remaining 150 employees. The decision has been taken due to the regulatory uncertainty and the failure of ZestMoney to gain traction under new management. The company started facing issues in early 2023 when PhonePe, a Walmart-owned fintech company decided to halt its proposed acquisition of the company.
ZestMoney was founded by Priya Sharma, Lizzie Chapman, and Ashish Anantharaman in 2016 and operated as an EMI and Pay Later network. In the fiscal year 2022, the company revenue increased to Rs. 145 crore against Rs. 89 crore in FY21. However, it reported a surge in its losses to Rs. 398.8 crore compared to Rs. 125.8 crore a year ago.