• Plans to utilise funds for global expansion and product development
• Developed the world’s first commercially deployed Blockchain Middleware Ecosystem for the BFSI sector – ‘MiFiX’
• Impacted over 50K lives through microfinance, micro insurance, migrant remittances and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending
• Total fundraise till date amounts to USD 5.5 million

September 22nd, Bengaluru: Blockchain technology enabler New Street Technologies (New Street) has bagged a USD 4 million funding in a follow on round. The round saw participation from a group of private investors led by Vittal Kadapakkam in the US, prominent Indian bankers, and existing investors including Unitus Ventures and Mohit Davar, Chairman of International Association of Money Transfer Network. With operations in India, UAE and parts of Asia, New Street now plans to enter into the Americas, Europe and Africa.

Commenting on the fundraise, Sajeev Viswanathan, Founder & CEO, New Street Tech said,

“Blockchain is to ‘processing’ what the internet is to information. New Street has leveraged blockchain’s unique ability to democratize transaction processing and has already demonstrated its transformational impact in the BFSI sector. Our investors understand the exponential opportunity that our model has globally, and hence this investment in us. The capital raised provides for accelerated product development and access to the larger global markets”.

Emphasising on the unique product that they have developed and its use cases, Sajeev adds, “New Street’s flagship blockchain based middleware – MiFiX, is amongst the world’s first commercially successful blockchain ecosystems for the BFSI sector. A single MiFiX node in a bank can revolutionize processes and foster innovation across products including, trade finance, digital lending, cash management, remittances etc.

In microfinance processing for example, MiFiX has improved operating efficiency by over 500%, across the value chain – from bank, to business correspondent to end borrower, without any significant capital expenditure to our clients. In another use case, New Street deployed Finance Against Remittances (FAR), an innovation that helped our bank client gain a significant share of the country’s foreign inward remittances by leveraging their own balance sheet – a product which was not possible without MiFiX. Some of the most influential world bodies in the cross-border migrant remittances sector recognize FAR as an innovation and are working with New Street to deploy it in remittance corridors across the globe”

Mohit Davar, Co-founder & Non-executive Director, New Street Tech, said,

“There is no doubt that blockchain is the way forward for the BFSI sector world-over. New Street has made it easy for financial institutions, new and historic alike, to weave the technology seamlessly into their business models and benefit from its versatility, instantaneously. My participation in this round is testimony to the massive global opportunity that exists for the company and my faith in the team to make it happen”.

Srikrishna Ramamoorthy, Partner at Unitus Ventures said, “The opportunity roadmap is vast. We believe that blockchain technology in banking is similar to the internet boom in the 90s. This technology explosion will transform the functioning of banks, especially with initiatives undertaken by the RBI, now several private and public banks are adopting the benefits of blockchain technology.

We have also seen how blockchain technology has contributed to the ease of doing business by simplifying lending to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). We are happy to be the early backers in this massive transition that New Street Tech leads.”

Vittal Kadapakkam, an active investor in the blockchain space said, “New Street’s interpretation of blockchain and their go-to-market strategy are very unique. The efficiencies they have created and the innovation opportunities they have demonstrated with MiFiX, their financial services middle-ware ecosystem has the potential to positively impact the BFSI sector globally. We are very excited to back this talented New Street team and be part of this transformative journey.”

The model and the mechanics

New Street has deployed a very unique and pioneering interpretation of Blockchain technology (BCT). Generally, Blockchain technology providers democratize “value” such as Crypto currency, NFTs, or “information” which is prevalently used across several Proofs of Concept (PoC). In addition to these, New Street democratizes “ transaction processing” which combines Microservices registry, Smart Contracts and Transaction Engines leveraging distributed ledgers. In other words, MiFiX creates an ecosystem of Nodes (DLT Peers) positioned across multiple parties to a transaction (even across independent organizations) coming together virtually to complete a transaction. This is a path breaking innovation and can multiply the dimensions of product innovation, operational re-engineering and risk reward recognition.

Many Indian businesses are at the forefront of innovation and understand the value of blockchain technology. New Street’s business model helps their clients adopt BCT and other new age technologies to improve their processes and prospects exponentially without disruption and at minimal capital investment.

New Street is making rapid inroads with banks, NBFCs, insurance companies, P2P lenders in India, Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) and banks overseas. The startup is also in conversations with multiple central banks to develop BCT ecosystems for the BFSI sector in their countries.

Challenges, solution and impact

Primarily incumbent technology and legacy systems that have existed in the BFSI sector pose a major challenge to adoption of new age technologies like BCT. However, New Street has been able to manage this by making it easy for our clients to leave their core systems as is, while leveraging the benefits of our ecosystem through simple API integration. With MiFiX, all transactions conducted by a bank can be processed using its own core banking solutions, loan processing systems, product processors, but delivering significant improvement in efficiency.

MiFiX has already demonstrated its transformative impact in the use-cases involving microfinance, micro insurance, migrant remittances and P2P lending clients where they have impacted over 50,000 lives. The uniqueness of New Street’s impact is that a customer who does not fit the criteria of one institution can seamlessly be recommended to another institution whose criteria fit. This makes it possible for “nobody goes hungry” in the financial services world.

About New Street Technologies

New Street Technologies Private Limited (New Street) is a technology company that enables businesses to transform their legacy infrastructure by leveraging blockchain and other modern technologies such as AI, ML & IoT. New Street has developed a “cut-thru-processing” ecosystem based on blockchain’s unique ability to democratize processes across multiple stakeholders and their incumbent infrastructure and processes. New Street was established in 2017, and operates out of Bangalore, India and Dubai, UAE. For more information on New Street. More about New Street Technologies>

About Unitus Ventures

Unitus Ventures is the leading venture fund in India that supports early stage fintech, healthcare, and jobtech startups with India scale and global potential. Launched in 2012, Unitus Ventures is a founding member of Capria Network, the leading global network of emerging market fund managers collaborating to deliver superior returns and scaled impact. Unitus Ventures is based in Bangalore and Seattle. More at: https://unitus.vc and http://capria.vc/network