Pravin Jadhav, founder and CEO of Raise Financial Services, shared the experience in a post on X, calling it one of the challenges of being a startup founder.
“Founder’s life is hard! My home loan application got rejected by a top private bank – just because I am a founder,” he wrote.
Founder’s life is hard!
My home loan application got rejected by a top private bank – just because I am a founder.
> 25 years+ of customer
> ~800 CIBIL Score
> 5x-6x of loan value in relationship with this bank
> may be in top 0.1% of its customers by assets
> and irony is this…— pj (@BeingPractical) July 14, 2026
Jadhav said he has been a customer of the bank for more than 25 years, has a CIBIL score of around 800, and maintains assets with the bank worth five to six times the value of the loan he applied for. He also claimed he is likely among the bank’s top 0.1% customers in terms of assets.
Highlighting the bank’s irony, Jadhav said the same bank had earlier honoured him as a top fintech innovator, but still refused to approve his home loan.
“They can give loan to team members our company employs, but not me — because as founder I’m high-risk category,” he wrote.
Ending his post on a humorous note, Jadhav joked, “Damn… lagta hai office mein hi rehna padega zindagi bhar…” (Looks like I’ll have to live in the office for the rest of my life).
The post quickly went viral on social media.
One user commented, “Depends on various parameters, like your loan amount ask, your monthly takeout, expected ROI. Banks do give home loans to businessmen and that’s nothing different.”
Another wrote, “Just write a letter to bank that you are going to close all your account from that bank, all the bank employee will be in your office not only for home loan but also for the other loan also.”
Just write a letter to bank that you are going to close all your account from that bank, all the bank employee will be in your office not only for home loan but also for the other loan also.
— Rajesh Choudhary (@razeshindia) July 15, 2026
“As a founder ,we’re always in high risk category because we can close the 30 yr loan in 3 yrs with one big financial event happening with us. Banks will lose 27 years of Interest income, that’s why high risk,” wrote the next.
???? exactly
— Jitesh???? (@JiteshGhanchi) July 15, 2026
Raise Financial Services is the parent company of Dhan, a popular stock trading and investment platform in India. The Mumbai-based fintech startup entered the unicorn club in October 2025 after raising $120 million from investors in a Series B funding round led by investment firm Hornbill Capital. After this investment, Raise Financial Services was valued at $1.2 billion.
