The Indian diaspora represents one of the most underserved yet economically powerful demographics in global finance.
With 15.8 million Indians living abroad sending $125 billion home annually—more than Mexico, China, and the Philippines combined—this community has been forced to navigate a labyrinth of expensive remittance services, paper-based banking processes, and disconnected financial products.
Today, we’re excited to announce our Series A and B investment in Aspora, the platform revolutionizing how the Indian diaspora manages money across borders. We co-led the Series B with Luciana Lixandru and George Robson at Sequoia Capital.
The $125 Billion Problem
Despite representing the wealthiest immigrant demographic in key markets like the US, UK, and the UAE, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) face unique financial challenges. Indians tend to maintain a financial presence in India, yet must navigate:
- Expensive and slow remittances: Traditional providers charge 2-4% in fees, costing the diaspora billions annually for slow, unreliable service.
- Broken banking experience: Opening an NRI account requires notarization costs of $150+ and weeks of paperwork.
- Fragmented financial services: Managing investments, loans, and payments across countries requires juggling multiple providers.
This isn’t just a minor inconvenience. NRIs hold 30% of India’s retail deposits ($408 billion) and represent 15% of the country’s real estate investments, yet they’re served by infrastructure built for a pre-digital era.
Enter Aspora: From Remittances to Full-Stack Finance
What struck us about Aspora wasn’t just their impressive growth—though growing fivefold from $400M to $2B in payment volume in six months is certainly impressive. It was their systematic approach to solving a complex, multi-faceted problem.
Starting with remittances as a wedge, Aspora has built modern infrastructure leveraging stablecoins to offer instant, transparent payments “at Google rates”. This isn’t just marginally better than incumbents—it’s a 10x improvement in speed, cost, and user experience. Their 250,000 users have already saved over $15 million in fees.
But remittances are just the beginning. Aspora is building the complete financial operating system for NRIs, from banking, to investing, to cross border credit and insurance.
The Next Wave of Consumer Fintech
At Greylock, we’ve partnered with companies that have redefined financial services for consumers—from Wealthsimple transforming investing for Canadians, to Coinbase enabling global retail access to crypto, to PayJoy enabling finance for the next billion people. We see in Aspora the same pattern: identify an underserved but valuable demographic, build trust through a killer wedge product, then expand to own the full financial relationship.
Building trust with a diaspora community and understanding their unique needs isn’t something that can be easily replicated. When founder Parth Garg first showed us frustrated real world experiences from NRIs struggling with basic banking, we knew this wasn’t just about technology, but about deeply understanding a community’s pain points.
A Mission-Oriented Founder Who Lives the Problem
Parth Garg is one of the most impressive new founders across all of global fintech. He embodies customer obsession and relentless drive, attributes that we admire at Greylock. Having been an NRI for 15 years, Parth saw the massive opportunity and dropped out of Stanford to solve his own frustrations with cross-border finance. Since we first invested in the Series A, we’ve watched Parth grow a global team across London, Dubai, and Bengaluru. It’s a privilege for us at Greylock to partner with Parth, on the mission to build the world’s leading financial partner for immigrant diasporas, starting with the Indian diaspora.
The Road Ahead
With the Series B, Aspora is accelerating their expansion to the US, Australia, and Singapore while expanding the product offering.
The global Indian diaspora deserves financial infrastructure as sophisticated as their economic contribution. We’re excited to double down on our partnership with Aspora as they make that a reality.
If you’re an NRI ready to revolutionize how you manage money across borders, join the waitlist for Aspora’s US launch. And if you’re excited about the team’s mission and want to join them, check out their open jobs.
