GoDutch: Startup Re-imagining Group Payments Raises $1.7 Mn in Seed Funding Round

GoDutch carves a niche for itself in India’s hotbed for startups that is fintech. Time and again, financial technology is proving to be a lucrative arena for the birth of startups which makes it only harder for a company to make rounds. The startup simplifies group payments allowing users to record, split and automatically settle transactions. In a market where numerous existing apps allow recording of group transactions, goDutch makes all the difference by enabling seamless peer-to-peer settlements through real-time splitting. Through the goDutch card launched in partnership with CBS Bank, it enables real-time splitting of group payments through both online and offline merchants.

GoDutch was founded by IIT Bombay alumnus Aniruddh Singh, Riyaz Khan, and Sagar Sheth in 2019 targeting the social millennial crowd. The idea behind goDutch is to esentially elimante the awkward moment at the culmination of a social outing – who pays and how to pay them back. ” Our group experiences are affected by awkward hassles in settling expenses with our friends. We tackle this intricate problem in one swipe of the goDutch card to provide our customers with a quick and effortless experience in such tricky situations,” said Aniruddh Singh, the COO of goDutch.

The incumbent process for group payments is a multi-step one with a high social barrier and added to that is the persisting struggle to settle accounts through the available transaction tracking apps. GoDutch provides an easy way out by bridging that gap. “As we graduated and started living with flat mates, we realized that most expenses were group expenses such as rent, furniture rental, food and grocery, OTT platforms, movies, concerts. Managing that wasn’t easy as we had to manually note down every expense and then wait for a lot of days before people eventually cleared the outstanding balance after multiple awkward reminders,” said Sagar Sheth, the CEO of GoDutch.

GoDutch offers many features including options to create groups with friends, add expenses or bills with groups or individuals, chat with groups or individuals, edit or delete transactions, view and settle all outstanding balances, remind friends to pay you back, and pay your friends manually or initiate UPI payments using PhonePe, Google Pay, WhatsApp, BHIM, etc. These appealing features lured in over 1,000 downloads in a week of the launch of its app, driven primarily by early adopters discovering them through social media and sharing. 

This Indian payments platform raised $1.7 million from Matrix partners. The seed funding round also witnessed participation from Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital, Soma Capital, VentureSouq and marquee.  Angel investors that backed the startup include the co-founder of Tinder, Justin Mateen, Co-founder of Twitch, Kevin Lin, ClearTax investor Sumon Sadhu and the head of ICICI lab, Rohan Angrish. With this funding, goDutch is targeting 50 million Indians across Tier I and II cities that make up $75 billion worth of group transactions annually.

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