Castler, a digital escrow platform, has successfully raised $5 million in a Pre-Series A funding round, with Capital2B (an Info Edge fund) and IIFL Fintech Fund leading the investment. Additional participants in the round included Stride Ventures and Piper Serica, along with existing investors Zerodha, Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns, FAAD Network, Navin Suriya (Chairman FCC), Ajay Rajan (Head of Transaction Banking & Digital Transformation, Yes Bank), and Naveen Kukreja (Co-Founder & CEO, Paisabazaar). Castler had previously secured $1.5 million in funding through pre-seed and seed rounds, with investments from Lets Venture and AngelList.
The capital infusion will be utilized to expand Castler’s domestic and cross-border escrow product portfolio while forging partnerships with 25 banks. The company aims to achieve substantial growth, targeting a 10x increase in business over the next few years.
Established in 2021 by Vineet Singh and Dinesh Kumar, Castler offers an escrow banking stack that serves as an intermediary between banks and enterprises. This platform facilitates complex transaction flows, including source of money verification, identity authentication, fraud management, and customer-consumer protection. With an impressive client base of over 500 enterprises, Castler currently manages transactions worth more than Rs 5,000 crore on a monthly basis. The company has formed partnerships with ten banks to date.
Vibhore Sharma, Partner at Capital 2B, emphasized the increasing significance of escrow banking, which has evolved into a fundamental component of various business operations and use cases. Apart from its regulatory application in capital markets, real estate, liquidation and insolvency, and government subsidies, escrow now plays a pivotal role in facilitating secure and transparent financial transactions across the entire value chain. Castler’s innovative solutions provide an additional layer of security and transparency to businesses.
By securing this substantial funding, Castler is well-positioned to expand its presence in the digital escrow industry and strengthen its market position.
