Indian fintech Jar turns profitable by enabling millions to save in gold

The jar, an Indian fintech startup, which allows users to invest in gold, has changed profitable for millions for the first time by helping the saver using their app to make digital gold holdings.

While many consumers focus on fintech-rich urban users or credit products, the jar has received traction as a low-career entry point to save a culturally familiar property-gold-gold. The four-year-old startup targets users with minimal-medium income-a section is often outlined by traditional financial institutions-they allow them to be saved in gold (10 (about $ 0.11) a day (about $ 0.11).

That strategy has helped the jar reach more than 35 million registered users in the 12,000 zip code, co-founder and CEO Nische AG said in an interview. He said that about 60% of the users are from small cities and towns in India (known as Tier -2 and Tier -3 Town), and more than 95% are formally saving for the first time, they told Tekkachchan.

Financials of startups reflect this speed, and tell two sources Techchchan, familiar to the matter, it is planning to become public next year. Sources said that investment bankers are engaged with startups for their IPOs.

These bankers have a compelling development story to share. The operating revenue of the jar grew nine-fold in the year 2024 from its core Gold-ritting app, which ended in March, as revealed in its latest filing. More dramatically, its total revenue in all commercial lines during the same period increased to 24.50 billion (about $ 279.3 million), which represents ₹ 500 million ($ 5.7 million) to 49-tumble jump in the previous financial year (FY24).

This total revenue figure includes earnings from digital gold transactions, sales of jewelry through their NEK platform and fees from third party distribution partnership.

The jewelry component is a large piece of this diverse approach. NEK launched Gold, Silver, Diamond and Lab-Groe Diamond Jewelery in more than 8,000 zip code earlier last year. The platform works on a drop-showing model with zero inventory. It crossed ₹ 1 billion (about $ 11 million) in the annual revenue last year and “has been growing continuously since then,” Nischeche said.

After tax for the last two quarters, the jar has been beneficial, Nishche told Techchchan.

This development is associated with a condition by the company in a new direction. Until last year, JAR mainly served as a distribution platform, working with a third-party Digital Gold Provider-unrestfully served as a middleman. Since then, it has integrated its operations, which to manufacture, store, store, store, and manage gold directly, BDO is serving as its legal auditor and brinks as its detention partner. By controlling the entire value chain, the jar can now capture a large portion of the Gold Value Chain and even distribute his gold through third -party platforms, including Walmart -owned Fintech firm PhonePe.

Earlier this year, Bangalore-based startups participated in the Bengaluru-based startup to make digital payments directly to individuals and traders through the Jar app using India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system. UPI is India’s major digital payment network that allows immediate bank-to-bank transfer using smartphones. This step opens a new revenue stream and its purpose is to enhance the busyness and retention of the user by making the utility of the app wide beyond saving only gold saving.

JAR UPI has also been an early adoption of autope, a feature launched by the Government of India in 2020 to enable recurring payments on the UPI platform. This feature has helped a startup, which only according to sources familiar with the case, supports UPI-based payments to save gold, drives the transaction of repeat from users.

“Daily Saving is our hero feature, and this is what most of our users use for it,” Nishche said when asked how UPI Autope has contributed to the development of the company.

This app serves a diverse user base from skilled professionals in IT and manufactures for small business owners and daily wage workers, such as electricians, plumbers, carpentry and construction laborers. The app supports nine Indian languages, which the company says it helps to complete users at the level of education and income.

Startup has also designed its app to provide users a personal experience, with gamification and nudges to encourage gold savings.

“The growth team constantly created separate cohorts, based on which phone you use, to identify the consumer to identify the consumer, in which place you are calling, from which language, from which language, from your consistent savings patterns, keeping in mind all the things they keep in mind.”

The startup counts Tiger Global, Tribe Capital, Arkam Ventures and WEH Ventures among its investors. According to tracxn, it has raised $ 63.3 million in today’s funding, and was the last value of over $ 300 million.