A Capital Idea

Sashank Rishyasringa and Gaurav Hinduja were given many reasons why Capital Float would not work. Naysayers said the market was not ready and they lacked experience. The duo has proven them wrong.

- Debojyoti Ghosh

WHEN GAURAV HINDUJA and Sashank Rishyasringa, co-founders and managing directors at Capital Float, approached a few venture capitalists in 2013 for funding to start their digital lending startup, their response was a curt “no”. The reason: The market was not ready for a business such as theirs and they lacked experience in the cut-throat business of loan collection. One of the venture capitalists went so far as to hint in jest that they were overqualified for the job: “Stanford business school alumni aside, you will never be able to do money collection from borrowers on ground.”

Rishyasringa, 36, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a specialisation in economics and finance before doing an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Hinduja, 37, a commerce graduate from Christ University, Bengaluru, was his batchmate at business school.

The naysayers could not have been more wrong. That was the time when e-commerce was gaining steam in India. Rising sales on online marketplaces meant that sellers on these platforms would need capital to balance supply with demand and expand business. This the two knew. “We were one of the first to go to these e-commerce players and tell them that as their platform grows, the sellers in their marketplaces would need working capital to grow their business,” says Rishyasringa.

As for their lack of experience, prior to his management degree, Rishyasringa was working with global consulting major McKinsey & Company in the U.S. In his role as senior engagement manager, he was advising several