Bueno Finance merges with BetterPlace amid funding challenges

• ByStartup Story Team     |    May 8, 2023

Indian fintech startup, Bueno Finance, has merged with BetterPlace, a blue-collar workforce management company. According to sources, the merger was driven by the funding winter in the fintech sector, with Bueno struggling to raise funds. BetterPlace, on the other hand, was seeking to expand into the lending space. Bueno provides loans to blue-collar workers while BetterPlace provides a range of workforce management solutions. Both companies count food delivery companies such as Swiggy and Zomato among their clients.

Bueno Finance was founded by Saurav Gandhi and Sandeep Arora in 2019. As part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch, the Gurugram-based startup raised about $3 million in total funding from Goat Capital, JAM Fund, Olive Tree Capital, Good Water Capital, and angel investors like Kunal Shah and Anupam Mittal. BetterPlace, founded by Pravin Agarwala and Uday Singh in 2015, has raised about $80 million in total equity from investors such as Macquarie Capital, Site Capital Partners, Jungle Ventures, and British International Investment.

The acquisition marks BetterPlace’s foray into the lending space, as the company has been on an acquisition spree in the past two years. It has acquired several startups, including OLX People, AasaanJobs, Oust Labs, Waah Jobs, OkayGo, and EzeDox. This year, the company expanded into the Southeast Asia market with two acquisitions, including Indonesia-based MyRobin and Malaysia-based flexi talent solutions technology player Troopers.

According to a source, Bueno’s co-founder Sandeep Arora left the firm last year “following a disagreement with Saurav Gandhi and investor Goat Capital.” The report added that the disagreement stemmed from the company’s inability to onboard clients, which led to difficulty in raising funds. Gandhi declined to comment on the deal, while BetterPlace did not respond to an email query sent by ET.

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