Bon

Founded in 2016 by CEO Bhasker Kode aka 'Bosky', Bon aims to provide credit solutions to those in India's gig economy. 'Gig' economy workers are defined as self-employed workers, taxi or ridehsare drivers and goods delivery drivers. Speaking on the gig economy, Bhasker 'Bosky' Kode said:

In India, where credit cards are not pervasive, this issue is even more prominent, as people don't really have a safety net to rely on when they don't have cash on hand.

Bon does not provide credit. The loan comes from two non-banking financial companies (NFBCs) Kudos Finance and Aphelion Finance. Workers can apply for the credit card through Bon's app, which uses an algorithm to asses a customer around past earnings, percentage of cash versus digital earnings, history of a customer on Bon's platform, where they live and their past use of credit.

The cards are issued by MasterCard. And the loans range from Rs 800 to Rs 5,000, issued weekly at 2% interest with a 30 day term. The loans are available only for work expenses. For example, a driver can only use their loan for fuel, repair, servicing or other designated purpose.

Bon achieves this through in-house backend software, which calculates the credit score of the user, the attainable credit limit, risk profile, the merchant and the merchant category code to decide of the transaction is accepted or rejected.

In September of 2018, Bon announced the conclusion of their seed round for $1.1 million. The round was led by Omidyar Network and included investment from Axilor and Better Capital's AngelList India Syndicate.