Upwards
Founded 2017 · 43 employees on LinkedIn · 4 known investors
Upwards offers instant personal loans of up to ₹5 lakh through a fully digital, paperless application process with EMI repayment over 6 to 24 months. It serves individual borrowers across India in over 200 cities, positioning itself in the consumer lending and fintech space.
Also known as Upwards Fintech · Upwards Fintech Pvt Ltd
Investors · 4
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$21M disclosed across 1 round · 2024
- $21MSeries BFeb 2024 · 4 sources
Alpha Edison (lead), Fika Ventures, M13
Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Upwards (legal name Upwards Fintech Pvt Ltd) is a Mumbai-headquartered consumer lending platform that provides small, unsecured personal loans to salaried individuals in India through a fully digital, paperless application flow. Its website advertises instant loans of up to Rs 5 lakh with EMIs starting at about Rs 2,500, repayment tenures of 6 to 24 months, interest rates of 18% to 32% per annum depending on the applicant's CIBIL score, and a processing fee of up to 2% of the loan amount. Applicants submit loan requirement and eligibility details plus KYC documents in an application that the company says takes 15-30 minutes; sanction decisions are communicated on a near real-time basis (stated approval windows range from 20 seconds to 120 minutes, with a final decision within 24 hours), followed by digital signature and e-NACH mandate setup, with disbursal after 3-5 working days for document collection.
The company operates as an RBI-registered non-banking financial company and targets the lower-income, credit-underserved segment of the population, including salaried borrowers without an established credit history who would otherwise rely on informal moneylenders. Underwriting is data-science driven: the platform aggregates data from multiple sources to build a credit report containing more than 500 data points. Distribution is primarily through an Android app available on the Google Play Store, and the company states coverage of more than 200 cities and 8,000 pincodes, listing metros and tier-1/tier-2 markets such as Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, Jaipur, Madurai, Indore, Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Coimbatore and Ahmedabad.
Founding story
Upwards was founded in 2017 by IIT Delhi graduates Abhishek Soni (CEO) and Nimesh Verma (CTO). Soni, who holds a dual degree in chemical engineering and is a CFA Level-2 candidate, previously worked at PwC, The Parthenon Group and Indifi; Verma holds an integrated M.Tech in mathematics and computing and previously worked at LinkedIn, Housing.com and Craftsvilla, having started two ventures during college. Soni brought the initial set of business ideas to Verma, and the pair built domain understanding in lending as the company grew.
Business model
Upwards lends directly to retail borrowers as an RBI-registered NBFC, originating and servicing small-ticket unsecured personal loans repaid in monthly EMIs over 6 to 24 months and collected via e-NACH mandates.
Revenue comes from interest charged on loans, stated at 18% to 32% per annum depending on the borrower's CIBIL score, plus a one-time processing fee of up to 2% of the loan amount; there is no charge to apply.
Traction
The company's site reports more than 5 million app downloads, over Rs 500 crore in loans disbursed and more than 50,000 customers, with availability in 200-plus cities and 8,000-plus pincodes. In an April 2021 interview the co-founder cited 20-30% month-on-month growth and a target of 3x-5x growth year-on-year.
Latest developments
The website lists a contact email at the lendingkart.com domain alongside its Mumbai office address.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Positioned in India's digital consumer lending and fintech segment as a small-ticket personal loan provider for underserved salaried borrowers, competing with other online lending platforms serving salaried individuals.
The company emphasises a fully paperless process with minimal documentation, no collateral, near real-time sanction decisions and alternative-data underwriting that can assess salaried applicants lacking a conventional credit history, alongside comparatively long tenures for small-ticket loans.
Technology
A mobile and web application supports a paperless journey covering eligibility checks, KYC and document upload, digital signature and e-NACH setup. Credit decisioning relies on data-science-driven underwriting algorithms that aggregate data from multiple sources into a credit report of over 500 data points, enabling near real-time sanction decisions.
Go-to-market
Customer acquisition is app-led, with the loan product distributed via the Google Play Store app and the company's website; the entirely digital application and approval process gives the lender reach beyond physical branch footprints across 200-plus cities.
Salaried individuals in India, with a focus on the lower-income, credit-underserved segment described as roughly 60% of the population, including borrowers with little or no formal credit history.
Geography
India-wide operations run from Mumbai (Andheri East, Mumbai Suburban), covering more than 200 cities and over 8,000 pincodes; the team of roughly 60-70 people works from multiple cities across the country.
History
Established in 2017 in Mumbai, Upwards built a digital lending operation as an RBI-registered NBFC backed by India Quotient, Mayfield Fund and Shunwei Capital, with reported total funding of about $5.4 million as of 2021. By April 2021 the company employed roughly 60-70 people distributed across Indian cities and had stated plans to raise further capital that year to scale lending to underserved borrowers.
Compiled by commissioned research from 7 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Competitors · 7
by search overlap
Companies competing with Upwards for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
In the news
▸Research sources · 7
primary sources listed
- Upwardsupwards.in · web
7 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Upwards do?
- Upwards is an Indian fintech lender offering app-based instant personal loans to salaried borrowers through an RBI-registered NBFC.
- Who are Upwards's investors?
- Upwards's investors include India Quotient, Alpha Edison, Fika Ventures, M13.
- How much funding has Upwards raised?
- Upwards has disclosed $21M raised across 1 round.