Success Of Slice: How Rajan Bajaj Got Inspired By Airbnb To Serve Indian Youth

Everyone will agree with the fact that credit cards have changed our lives for good. Many would even say to you that credit cards can make one’s life easier! But, is it actually so? Well, in this modern era, getting a new card is no less than a headache. One needs to have a decent job and a good salary to qualify for such cards. Moreover, these cards involve the unnecessary burden of higher interest rates and extra annual charges. After knowing all these loopholes in the entire credit card industry, Rajan Bajaj, founder of Slice, came up with an idea of launching a simple, easily accessible, and user-friendly FinTech platform which allows the masses to make their daily transactions without any fear of irrelevant deductions.

Get full insights into Rajan Bajaj’s success story and know how did he launch slice.

How did it begin? 

Rajan Bajaj, who represented his state, Rajasthan, in the basketball nationals during his school days, suddenly decided to join the entrepreneurial bandwagon in his early 20s. While he was at IIT Kharagpur, he developed a passion for start-ups and unique business ideas. That’s what later pushed him to quit his maiden job at Flipkart and launch his rental business called Mesh. While the name was inspired by a book – The Mesh By Lisa Gansky – that he read during the second year of his college, the startup idea was influenced by Airbnb. However, the strategy didn’t work well and the company got shut down. As a result, Rajan began working on other interesting ideas related to shared economy business. Soon, he realised that he was a bit early in this industry and it was not the best time for him.

After having some quick pivots in his early days, Bajaj finally found his sweet spot by the end of December 2015 and Mesh got changed into Buddy, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) venture. But three years into it and Rajan still got no success. That could have happened because he was not trusted by the banks or any other creditors. Eventually, understanding the business and operations became  challenging for him.

It was in May 2019, when Rajan Bajaj’s life took a big turn. In that year, he decided to launch a physical card of Slice after many years of struggles and the idea became instant success.

The ultimate growth 

Within five months after the company launched its physical card, Slice crossed the one-million benchmark of transactions through its app. As a matter of fact, in June 2020, the company had raised $6.07 million in a pre-series B round of funding. The startup has now grown to 600 people and is backed by leading ventures such as Gunosy Capital,  Das Capital, Finup, Simile Venture Partner, EMVS Blume Ventures India, Tracxn Labs, Better Capital, Sachin Bansal’s Navi, along with angel investors such as Kunal Shah.

How Slice is rectifying the credit card woes in India? 

With Slice, Rajan Bajaj wants to target everyone who is eligible for a credit card and to build a transparent and simple financial platform for millennials and Gen Z. Through the Slice app, one can have complete control of their credit card – track their expenses, repayment schedule etc. Unlike traditional cards that generally come with fixed annual charges, this new-generation Fintech offers a completely zero-fee card with no hidden charges or annual fee. To top it off, Slice recently launched a three-month no-cost interest offer, which allows its users to slice their credit card bills over three months for free.