Capital 2B and IIFL Fintech Fund lead $5M funding for Castler

• ByStartup Story Team     |    May 11, 2023

Castler, a global escrow banking platform, has raised $5 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Capital 2B and IIFL Fintech Fund. Piper Serica and Stride Ventures also participated in the funding round, along with returning investors Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns, FAAD Network, and Zerodha. The funds raised will be used to expand Castler’s domestic and cross-border escrow product portfolio, grow its business by 10 times over the next few years, and expand its banking partnerships to 25 banks.

Castler is creating the next-generation operating system for money management in India through its innovative Escrow Banking Stack. Acting as a bridge between banks and enterprises, Castler addresses challenges related to complex transaction flows, fluctuating business and revenue models, identity verification, fraud management, and customer-consumer protection.

Castler is a global escrow platform that offers both domestic and cross-border escrow solutions to enterprises. Since its launch in April 2021, the company has partnered with 10 banks and has become the trusted escrow solution for over 500 enterprises. Castler manages over INR 5000 crores in transactions every month. Vineet Singh, Co-founder & CEO of Castler, highlighted that “the company’s unique digital escrow product is building trust as a service, which is the most important digital currency”. Singh added that “their  rapid growth with a team of just 20 people is a testament to the strength and capabilities of their product”.

Vibhore Sharma, a Partner at Capital 2B, which led the $5 million Pre-Series A funding round of Castler, said that “escrow banking is becoming an essential banking stack for many businesses and use cases. He added that Castler is aiming to simplify and digitize escrow banking for mass adoption, making trust an implicit part of all digital transactions and smart contracts. He also noted that escrow is now becoming the core stack powering financial transactions across the value chain, providing an additional but crucial layer of security and transparency”.

Mehekka Oberoi, Head of IIFL Fintech Fund, commented on Castler’s funding round and said, “Castler’s solution that combines Escrow, Trustee, and Transaction Tools is a game-changer for the banking industry. Its unique ability to offer solutions for both domestic and cross-border transactions opens a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars. We are thrilled to be a part of their mission to democratize Escrow Banking for consumers, SMEs, and Enterprises.”

Prominent figures in the fintech industry including Navin Suriya, Ajay Rajan, and Naveen Kukreja have reinvested in Castler’s current funding round. The company has previously secured $1.5 million in pre-seed and seed funding from investors such as Zerodha, Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns, FAAD Network, Lets Venture, and AngelList.

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