Payroll management startup Tartan raises $4.5 million in funding from 500 Global, others

Other investors included WorldQuant Ventures, Varanium GenNext Fund, 9Unicorns, Yatra Angel Network, Emphasis Ventures (EMVC) and Paisabazaar cofounder Naveen Kukreja.

The firm will use the funds to scale its go-to-market operations, expand its in-house engineering team and enhance its product offerings, it said in a statement on Monday. It aslo plans to double its headcount to 110 employees.

With this fundraise, the total equity funding raised by the company stands at roughly $6 million.

Founded in June 2021, Tartan provides a white-labeled application programming interface (API) suite for financial institutions to access their consumers’ payroll data with their consent to verify income and employment status.

It recently launched an employee benefits marketplace called Batik for employers and HR management software providers to offer financial benefits, including earned wage access (EWA), salary-linked loans, credit card limit management, and emergency funds.

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“With this latest round closely following our seed financing, we’re more focused on our social purpose-driven mission to open up access to financial services and products for millions of people in the workforce,” said Pramey Jain, chief executive officer (CEO), and cofounder of Tartan.

Since launch, Tartan claims to have scaled its data connectivity coverage to more than 20 million white-collared employees and gig workers in India. Since its inception, API requests have grown to 150,000 per month through its platform, it said.

“Tartan’s API unlocks the power of income and employment data, driving the next wave of innovation in the fintech ecosystem. Tartan aims to impact everyone who receives a salary or work fee. Such an immense opportunity, coupled with the company’s mission to build a larger data and distribution platform, uniquely positions Tartan,” said Christine Tsai, CEO and Founding Partner at 500 Global.

The company works with more than 80 customers and partners, which include banks, fintech lending platforms, credit bureaus, insurance providers, and recruitment agencies.