Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox — Promoting the Post-Pandemic SMB Recovery
In today’s episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox.
They discuss:
Prashant’s Early Career:
Prashant views himself as a product manager at heart, having spent time at Yahoo, Google, and Facebook. Prashant provides a unique perspective on large tech companies’ struggles with entering the payments space, pointing out that financial services is a domain that requires full commitment and an appreciation of the challenges ahead in order to be successful. Overall, Prashant views the role of a product manager as a great training ground for becoming a CEO because the role requires you to influence and lead cross-functional teams without direct supervision.
Joining Fundbox:
Prashant decided to join Fundbox largely because of the amazing team that was being assembled, and because of the mission of the company — helping the small business economy.
“I have found that small business owners tend to fall into one of two categories. There are some who are deep into the numbers and they love the financial aspects of their business. And then there are others who love the craft and the thing they hate the most about running a small business is the money part. Our goal is to be able to help all small business owners, but especially those that want to be able to focus on running and growing their business by giving them financial products, flexibility, and peace of mind.”
Even today, Prashant is motivated by the team, the mission, and the products Fundbox is developing. The team’s flagship product is an easily accessible revolving line of credit. Fundbox has also recently launched its Flex Pay product, which helps SMBs manage their payables. For most of Fundbox’s customers, making critical business payments like payroll or purchasing inventory can be a large source of anxiety. This anxiety is driven by the timing of the payment, and Fundbox works to make this process easier. Customers that have already adopted Flex Pay are placing over 50% of business expenses on and product and using the product 10 times per month.
Navigating the Pandemic:
Prashant gradually transitioned into the CEO role at Fundbox, and fully took over the position at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. When Prashant took over, the team decided to take its foot off the pedal with regard to acquiring new customers but wanted to help existing customers in any way possible. The team also decided to put a pin in new product development for a few months. These decisions helped Fundbox position itself well, and by Q4 of 2020, the business was growing at an incredible rate and on a much larger base.
Prashant has seen the SMB recovery in the United States be highly varied by sector. In general, B2B businesses performed better during the pandemic than B2C businesses. Verticals such as construction, transportation, and warehousing are above pre-pandemic levels by 8–10%. However, many key verticals are still down, including food and accommodation, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, and B2B administrative services.
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Prashant Fuloria:
Prashant Fuloria is Chief Executive Officer of Fundbox. With decades of experience in payments and monetization, he has served in a wide variety of leadership, operational, and product roles at prominent technology companies.
Prashant’s previous leadership roles at Fundbox include Chief Operations Officer and Chief Product Officer, where he led various parts of the business, including core tech functions, product marketing, collections, support, and HR. Prior to joining Fundbox, Prashant served as SVP of Advertising Products at Yahoo, having joined through the acquisition of Flurry, where he was the Chief Product Officer. He also served as Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook, where he led the company’s advertising and payment product efforts. Prashant also held the role of Product Director at Google, where he built their global payment platform and managed all of Google’s products for the APAC region.
Prashant received a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He also holds an MA in Business research; an MS in Statistics; a Ph.D. minor in Engineering-Economic Systems & Operations Research; and a Ph.D. in Business, all from Stanford University.
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About the Author
Anirudh Singh is a second-year MBA Candidate at The Wharton School, where he is part of the Wharton FinTech Podcast team. He has a passion for economic development, venture capital, financial services, and all things FinTech. Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, comments, feedback, and opportunities at singhan@wharton.upenn.edu.
