Becoming a unicorn is not as easy as we think. It needs several things, and a lot of things need to be worked on. But even in that scenario, it takes years to sustain and get that valuation. While most of the Indian startups are struggling to survive for more than 2-5 years, there is one company that has become a unicorn.
This is not any other payment aggregator, ed-tech, or just a lending platform. This company is a marketplace of debt that provides funding options for public and private sectors as well. Because the reliance on institutional finance is reduced, it also becomes easy to get the credit. The company is Yubi, which began its journey as CredAvenue. Founded by Gaurav Kumar, a seasoned fintech entrepreneur who previously co-founded Vivriti Capital, Yubi was born out of a need to simplify and digitize India’s fragmented debt ecosystem. In just two years, it rebranded to Yubi in 2022 and became one of India’s leading and most trusted digital debt platforms.
Yubi is not an NBFC, so it doesn’t actually lend money from its own books; instead, it is a platform where businesses and institutions can discover, negotiate, and secure credit from multiple lenders in a fully online, transparent, and efficient way. Yubi acts as the “middle layer” between borrowers and lenders. It brings together borrowers such as large corporates, MSMEs, and even public sector entities and connects them with a wide range of lenders, including banks, NBFCs, mutual funds, and insurance companies.
The entire process from loan origination to documentation, disbursal, co-lending, securitization, and even post-loan monitoring is handled digitally through Yubi’s platform. This eliminates the need for businesses to run from one financial institution to another, manually negotiate terms, or deal with time-consuming paperwork. Instead, Yubi provides a seamless experience where borrowers can compare multiple loan offers, choose the most suitable one, and complete the process efficiently, all in one place.
Yubi offers a full-stack digital infrastructure for debt, acting as a marketplace that connects borrowers and lenders across multiple segments. Its key platform, YubiLoans, helps large corporates and MSMEs raise term and working capital loans by connecting with multiple lenders. YubiInvest allows institutional and HNI investors to deploy capital into fixed-income instruments like bonds and NCDs. Through YubiCo.Lend, banks and NBFCs can seamlessly co-lend using integrated credit and compliance tools. YubiFlow enables supply chain financing, offering invoice discounting and dealer finance to improve cash flows. YubiPools supports securitization and direct assignment, helping lenders manage and monetize their loan books. Lastly, YubiWealth empowers wealth managers to offer curated debt products to their clients.
If you look at their revenue models and also their revenues, it is astonishing for the scale it had in just 5 years. The company revenues for FY 24 stood at around INR 483.7 crore, and in FY 23, it was just 327.6 crore. And it is a loss-making company. However, in just 5 years, the company has made significant progress. But how did it do all of this? Well before we understand that, let’s also look at their revenue models. And then let’s understand the strong supporting factor.
- Platform services: Yubi earns fees for enabling credit transactions across its platforms for loans, supply chain financing, co-lending, securitization, infrastructure, and real estate.
- Debt Collection & Loan Restructuring fees for credit assessment, debt restructuring, and collection services
- Merchant banking/advisory, which provides capital market services plus M&A support, underwriting, and syndication.
These are revenue models of the company. But there is one company that supports its growth, and also this company contributes to that company’s growth. The other company I am referring to is Vivriti. It is a great strategic play by these companies.
Vivriti Capital was co-founded in 2017 by Vineet Sukumar and Gaurav Kumar with the aim of bridging the credit gap for India’s mid-market enterprises. While Vivriti operated as an NBFC providing structured debt and asset management services, Gaurav Kumar later identified a deeper need, which is the lack of digital infrastructure for efficient debt discovery and distribution. This led him to launch CredAvenue (now Yubi) in 2020 as a separate entity focused on building a full-stack digital marketplace for institutional credit.
As both firms rapidly scaled, they formally demerged in mid-2023, allowing each to operate with independent leadership and strategy. Vineet now leads Vivriti Capital, and Gaurav heads Yubi. Despite the demerger, they continue to maintain a strong strategic partnership. Vivriti remains one of the key institutional lenders on Yubi’s platform, using its infrastructure for co-lending, securitization, and debt servicing. In turn, Yubi benefits from Vivriti’s capital depth, making the relationship a textbook example of how capital and technology can scale together in India’s fintech ecosystem.
And even the numbers support this. According to Vineet Sukumar’s statements as of 2023, Yubi is the source for loan origination; it contributes to 11-12% of their loans. And also Vivriti is providing 7% of the capital for the Yubi business. But today they operate as an independent entity. This is a clear and transparent structure, but most likely as a collaborative approach.
Yubi achieved unicorn status in March 2022 after raising $137 million in its Series B funding round. The round was led by global investment firms Insight Partners, B Capital Group, and Dragoneer, with participation from its existing investors. This funding pushed the company’s post-money valuation to $1.3 billion. Since its launch, Yubi claims to have facilitated over ₹1.4 lakh crore in debt transactions, serving a diverse network of more than 17,000 enterprises and 6,200 lenders and investors through its platform.
And another interesting point: the founder himself infused over 250 crores into the business last year. Yubi has already built serious scale in a space that’s complex, underserved, and often ignored. It’s quietly building the infrastructure that powers real credit movement in India. If it continues to streamline operations and improve efficiency, it could become a game-changer for the entire debt ecosystem.
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