![]() To put it succinctly, the reason most former California Fitness members gave when asked why they chose not to renew their membership was that it was just a glorified premium gym with facilities. Survival Of The FittestĪs this article pointed out, California Fitness failed because it wasn’t sustainable, creating exorbitant gym packages that required potential members to pay upfront thereby only ensuring cash flow at the start of the business. I was surprised when they’ve managed to be around for so long, so I sought to find out why and how. Purple-coloured booths replaced insurance companies’ booths at MRT stations, and where insurance agents were became fitness buffs in their purple dry-fit uniforms.Ĭan’t blame me for thinking they operated like a multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme. Then, 24-hour fitness chain, Anytime Fitness opened its first outlet in Woodlands in 2013. While I felt a little sorry for these customers, I had always thought they were foolish to spend so much on something that could be done at home or at a public gym. See the 18-page pitch deck Parafin used to raise its $60 million Series B.When news of mega gym California Fitness’ sudden mass closure came out in 2016, there was some chaos similar to when travel agencies unexpectedly dissolve and customers couldn’t retrieve the money they had paid in advance. The company is developing business-charge cards that platforms can tailor for their small-business customers, slated to launch in the fourth quarter. Now, Parafin will use its fresh funding to expand its product set. "Having accumulated a ton of knowledge about the US financial system and regulation while at Robinhood, we wanted to use the learnings to serve other markets that are being ignored: small businesses." "Some of us grew up in small-business families and have experienced first-hand the impact capital injection has on growing such businesses," Poddar said. A former data scientist at Robinhood, Furman's grandparents ran a convenience store in Poland.Īnd while their careers took them to top institutions - from Facebook to Carnegie Mellon and Stanford University - when the time came to jumpstart their own company, they were drawn back to their roots. And Goel, who was the head of risk and fraud engineering at the stock-trading app, came from a family who ran an electrical wiring operation, also in Kolkata. Poddar, the former head of machine learning engineering at Robinhood for four years, grew up in his family's garment business in Kolkata, India. Poddar and his cofounders - Vineet Goel, Parafin's chief product officer, and Ralph Furman, its president - came from small-business owning families. The fintech, which is now valued at $520 million, also raised a debt facility up to $150 million from Jefferies and Atalaya Capital Management. On August 2, Parafin closed its $60 million Series B, led by GIC with participation from Thrive Capital and Ribbit Capital. "It was in our conversations with business owners themselves - we did a lot of them in the early days to find our way - that the problem of lack of access to capital became clear," he said. All the cofounders knew was that they wanted to build technology that would help small businesses. "When we left Robinhood, I don't think we knew we'd be starting Parafin as it is now," Sahill Poddar, CEO of Parafin, told Insider. The startup also provides the capital, sourced via debt capital providers, and manages underwriting and risk. Parafin's tech offering spans product, marketing, compliance, and IT support for partners to embed capital products. The fintech enables platform partners to offer capital to the small businesses they work with. Some of Parafin's customers include DoorDash and Mindbody, a software provider to tens of thousands of fitness, health, and wellness businesses. ![]() Parafin, launched in 2020, works with so-called platform partners, or companies that other small businesses sell their products through. Parafin used this 18-page pitch deck to raise a $60 million Series B.Ī trio of former Robinhood employees are trying to help small businesses access capital via the marketplaces they work with.Robinhood's former heads of ML and risk engineering, and a data scientist cofounded the startup. ![]() ![]() Parafin is a fintech that helps other businesses offer financing to their third-party sellers.
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