The Atlanta-headquartered company is set to invest over Rs 100 crore over two years to establish and expand its India operations, cofounder and CEO Tim Sheehan exclusively told ET.
The company has opened a 45-person R&D centre in Bengaluru, with 100 more set to join over the next 12 months.
Sunil Shirguppi has joined as senior vice president (SVP) and country head to lead the company’s operations here. Shirguppi was previously managing director at Goldman Sachs, leading the investment banking company’s fraud engineering practice.
The Greenlight India Development Centre, a statement said, will focus on accelerating product innovation to better serve the company’s growing customer base of more than 6 million parents and kids, and advance its mission to improve financial literacy for the next generation.
Greenlight offers a banking app for families in the United States, that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely, invest, and more. Parents send money, automate allowances, assign tasks, and set spending controls through Greenlight.
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Venture capital-backed startups in the fintech-for-kids space in India include Fampay, Junio, Walrus, YPay, Yodaa, and Pencilton. Greenlight has no plans to set up any business in the country, beyond product development.“We haven’t launched in India yet as we want to study the market carefully. Whatever we do, we want to make sure it’s solving real problems for families. We don’t want to just take the US product and roll it out globally’’, Sheehan told ET.
“Bengaluru is going to be one of our biggest offices — if not the biggest — in 12 months,” Sheehan added.
A key hub for Greenlight’s software development activities, the India Development Centre will leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other cutting-edge technologies to enhance existing product features and develop new capabilities, the statement added.
Greenlight’s main business is its debit card for kids and teens linked to an app that parents and kids can manage on their smartphones. In January, the company laid off 104 employees, about 21% of its headcount then, to rein in expenses amid a slowdown in the economy.
Founded in 2014, Greenlight has raised more than $550 million from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, and is currently valued at $2.3 billion. It also provides B2B services to the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley such as helping integrate its services within their banking ecosystems, among others. Greenlight booked over $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2021.