The three musketeers of BankBazaar

The Shetty’s of BankBazaar have good reasons to call 2017 (and even 2018) their happening year. October of 2017 saw Experian, a consumer credit reporting agency, leading a $30 million funding (growth) round, taking the total investements in BankBazaar to $110 million. Experian joined BankBazaar’s investor club, which includes Amazon, Sequoia, Fidelity Growth Partners, and Walden International.

Shetty's were optimistic of closing FY2018 with Rs 240 crore in revenue. And the bumper top-line growth seems to have with relatively lesser operating expenses. Its quarter ended December 2017 saw operating revenue growing 168%, while operating expenses grew by 53% only. Their headcount also rose by 400 in 2017.

And, the other happy reason was the number of visitors on its site, which touched 70 million in the latest quarter, an eye popping 115% more that the 25 million visitors BankBazaar saw in quarter ended December 2016. Between the latest quarter ended and the previous, ended September 2017, the free transactions have doubled, owing to repeat, and 75% of the traffic growth is organic. These factors fuel the bullishness of the 150% top-line growth this year.

BankBazaar expects to break-even in the fiscal ending March 2019. Interestingly, in the latest quarter, BankBaaar noted 178% and 146% growth each in credit and insurance products. In case of paperless mutual funds, it is signing on an average 100 new investors—75 of whom are new to mutual funds—every day across the variety of mutual funds.

Adhil Shetty, co-founder and CEO, BankBazaar, claims that digital paperless businesses can make net margins of almost 80% compared to traditional call centre businesses or businesses run by offline agents, that make only 10% net margins on products sold. And there is a big potential ahead, as Ben Elliott, CEO, Experian Asia Pacific believes “that consumer adoption of fully digital experiences coupled with paperless access to financial products will push customer acquisition 10 times by 2020”.

Find the 40 under 40, 2018 list here

The annual Fortune India 40 under 40 event takes place in Bengaluru on April 29.