How Bhavik Vasa and GetVantage Are Helping Founders Build Wealth Through Debt
When Bhavik Vasa needed growth capital to compete with PayTM and PhonePe at his previous fintech venture ITZ Cash, he discovered what 6.19 crore Indian MSMEs face daily: a banking system that doesn't understand their business. Despite running a high-growth, high-revenue digital payments company that would eventually exit to NASDAQ-listed EBIX for $150 million, traditional banks demanded collateral for what was fundamentally a tech business with few physical assets.
That operational pain became the genesis of GetVantage, India's leading revenue-based financing platform that has now funded over 450 brands and raised $41.5 million to tackle what experts estimate is a $530 billion credit gap in India's MSME sector.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
The Demonetization Watershed
The November 2016 demonetization announcement created an unexpected moment of clarity for India's fintech sector. For Vasa, who had spent years building digital payment infrastructure, it was personally revelatory:
"What it did to me personally is finally, actually in 2016, after demonetization, digital payments, FinTech became something that everybody understood. So leave aside all professional aspects. Finally, my friends and family knew what I was doing the last 10 years."
This moment of mass digital payment adoption laid the groundwork for what would become GetVantage. After successfully scaling ITZ Cash from $3 million to $45 million in revenue over seven years and navigating its acquisition, Vasa recognized that India's emerging digital-first businesses would need funding models as innovative as their business models.
The timing proved prescient. India's digital payments market has since exploded to $2.52 trillion as of February 2024, with UPI processing 131 billion transactions worth $2.4 trillion in FY24 alone. This digital infrastructure maturity created the data foundation that revenue-based financing platforms like GetVantage would need to operate.
Reimagining the Capital Stack
Traditional venture capital follows a familiar playbook: exchange equity for growth capital, accept board seats and dilution, then either exit or die trying. Vasa's insight was that digital-first businesses generate real-time revenue data that could support an entirely different financing model, one that preserves founder control while providing flexible growth capital.
GetVantage operates what Vasa calls a "capital gateway" model, drawing parallels to how Amazon revolutionized e-commerce and Uber transformed mobility:
"What Amazon did to the e-commerce world and what Uber and Ola did to the mobility world, right? You are a platform, pre-want demand, with far more convenient and a tech intervention play. When you bring demand in the consumers in, on the other hand, you stitch up with various sources of supply."
The mechanics are deceptively simple but technologically sophisticated. Businesses connect their payment gateways, GST portals, advertising accounts, and marketplaces to GetVantage's proprietary API stack. This real-time data integration enables automated underwriting decisions in 48 hours and funding disbursement within five days. Companies receive capital in exchange for sharing 5-25% of future revenues until they've repaid the principal plus a flat fee.
Crucially, GetVantage doesn't lend from its own balance sheet. Instead, it operates as a marketplace connecting businesses with a network of institutional capital partners including NBFCs, debt funds, and its own RBI-licensed entity, GetGrowth Capital. This platform approach enables GetVantage to take a 20-30% fee on deployed capital while avoiding the capital intensity that constrains traditional lenders.
The Collections Innovation
Perhaps the most elegant aspect of GetVantage's model lies in its automated collections system. Rather than relying on traditional EMI structures that strain cash flow during lean periods, the platform integrates directly with revenue sources:
"Even before the money hits your bank account, can I take a split? 5% is my revenue share. I take 5% from the payment gateway. 95 come to you as a merchant. 5 comes to me as a retailer. I have an escrow account, a virtual escrow account."
This approach eliminates the need for collections teams while reducing default risk. Repayments automatically scale with business performance, providing breathing room during downturns and accelerated payback during growth periods. For founders, it removes the psychological burden of fixed monthly payments that don't correlate with revenue performance.
Market Validation Through Crisis
GetVantage launched in February 2020, just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic upended global business models. Rather than derailing the company, the crisis validated its core thesis. As physical businesses scrambled to establish digital presence, GetVantage found itself perfectly positioned to serve the accelerated digitization trend:
"Suddenly now, every business is considered or has to be online and digital. It's not a good to have anymore. It's a must-have. Because as consumers, we all started buying everything online, right?"
The platform has since onboarded over 9,000 brands across 18+ sectors, from D2C consumer brands to B2B SaaS companies. Its current portfolio of 450+ funded businesses spans everything from home care and apparel to EdTech and CleanTech. The company targets funding 1,000+ additional brands over the next 18 months.
By the Numbers: A Market in Transformation
The data supporting GetVantage's growth tells the story of India's broader MSME financing evolution. India's credit penetration in the MSME sector remains just 14%, significantly behind China (37%) and the United States (50%). This translates to an addressable credit gap that the World Bank estimates at $530 billion.
Meanwhile, the revenue-based financing market itself is experiencing explosive growth. India's RBF market is projected to grow 26.3% annually to reach $9.51 billion in 2024, with a medium-term compound annual growth rate of 17.7% through 2028. Globally, the RBF market is expanding from $6.4 billion in 2023 to a projected $178.3 billion by 2033.
GetVantage's own metrics reflect this broader trend. The company has raised $41.5 million across seven funding rounds from investors including Chiratae Ventures, Dream Incubator (Japan), and Sony Innovation Fund. Its current valuation of ₹239 crores ($29 million) positions it as a significant player in India's alternative lending ecosystem.
The platform processes funding requests ranging from $10,000 to $3 million (₹2 lakhs to ₹20 crores), with approval decisions delivered in as fast as 48 hours and capital deployed within five days. This speed advantage becomes crucial for businesses needing to capitalize on seasonal opportunities or respond to competitive pressures.
The Technology Moat
What distinguishes GetVantage from traditional lenders or even other fintech players is its commitment to building proprietary technology infrastructure. The company dedicates 40-45% of its team to technology and DevOps functions, a resource allocation that reflects its platform-first approach:
"We are FinTech guys approaching this from a FinTech lens, not from a fund manager or investment banking analyst."
The platform's underwriting engine integrates data from multiple sources in real-time: payment gateway transactions, GST filings, bank statements, Google and Facebook advertising spend, and marketplace performance metrics. This comprehensive data picture enables GetVantage to evaluate businesses based on current performance rather than historical financial statements that may not reflect the dynamic nature of digital businesses.
The system generates what GetVantage calls a "trust score" for each applicant, with 70-75% of the evaluation based on quantitative data and 20-25% on qualitative factors like industry trends and founder backgrounds. This approach enables the platform to serve businesses that traditional banks would reject due to limited collateral or credit history.
Regulatory Tailwinds and Industry Context
GetVantage's growth coincides with increasingly supportive regulatory environments for MSME financing. The Reserve Bank of India has implemented Priority Sector Lending guidelines mandating that banks allocate 7.5% of adjusted net bank credit to micro enterprises. The RBI has also introduced digital lending guidelines focused on consumer protection while enabling innovation through regulatory sandboxes.
The company strengthened its regulatory positioning in March 2023 by obtaining its own NBFC license through GetGrowth Capital, providing additional credibility when partnering with institutional lenders. This regulatory compliance becomes increasingly important as the alternative lending space attracts greater scrutiny.
India's fintech sector more broadly shows signs of maturation despite funding headwinds. The sector attracted $1.9 billion in 2024 despite a 33% year-over-year decline, maintaining the country's third-place global ranking for fintech funding behind the US and UK. Significantly, digital lending dominated 2024 funding activity, comprising 64% of total investments in the sector.
The Philosophical Difference
Beyond the mechanics of revenue-based financing lies a philosophical difference in how GetVantage approaches founder relationships. Vasa distinguishes his platform from traditional capital providers through what he describes as genuine empathy for operator challenges:
"We don't have a mission, we have a passion. Our passion is to back a thousand, 10,000, 100,000 founders and small businesses that are out there, help them capital, support, and talent."
This founder-first orientation reflects the founding team's operational background. Unlike traditional venture debt funds typically staffed by investment banking or fund management professionals, GetVantage's senior leadership consists entirely of former founders and operators who have experienced firsthand the challenges of accessing growth capital.
The platform's ultimate vision extends beyond India. Vasa positions GetVantage as potentially becoming the "world's capital gateway," drawing parallels to how payment gateways connect merchants with consumers:
"GetVantage wants to not only be India's but the world's capital gateway. We know what a payment gateway does - connects a merchant and a consumer to make payment happen. Here what I'm connecting is institution with a brand to get forms of capital."
Looking Forward: The Ecosystem Implications
GetVantage's success signals broader shifts in India's entrepreneurial finance landscape. As traditional venture capital becomes more selective and founders seek to preserve equity, alternative financing models gain credibility and market share. The platform's growth validates that digital infrastructure maturity enables new forms of risk assessment and capital deployment.
For the broader MSME ecosystem, platforms like GetVantage represent a potential bridge between informal financing sources that charge prohibitive rates and formal banking systems that remain difficult to access. The automated, data-driven approach could eventually serve the millions of micro-enterprises currently excluded from formal credit systems.
The model's scalability suggests it could address not just India's MSME financing gap but similar challenges in other emerging markets with developing digital financial infrastructure. As more businesses operate digitally-first models, revenue-based financing may transition from alternative to mainstream.
[Watch the complete Founder Thesis Podcast episode with Bhavik Vasa for deeper insights into the future of alternative financing and his blueprint for scaling non-dilutive capital platforms →]
This analysis draws from the Founder Thesis Podcast interview with Bhavik Vasa, current market research, and regulatory filings. The views expressed represent the author's interpretation of publicly available information and should not be considered investment advice.
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