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This Founder’s Journaling Obsession Made Tala an $800 Million Business
Shivani Siroya is transforming the lending market in developing countries. Just don’t call her an introvert.
Shivani Siroya, the founder and CEO of fintech startup Tala, doesn’t need a lecture on how credit works from her Uber driver, but that’s exactly what she’s getting one sunny September morning on the way to her Santa Monica office. “It’s best to spread debt over three cards,” explains the driver, a thirtysomething actor type with a smoky voice who has thoroughly inserted herself into the interview I’m trying to conduct in the back seat. Siroya, 37, who’s as petite as she is precise in gesture and speech, listens thoughtfully while stroking Sadie, the massive goldendoodle who often accompanies Siroya or her husband, Chet Devaskar, a lawyer at YouTube, to work. “What did you do before you worked for Uber?” Siroya asks our driver with genuine curiosity. As the driver launches into a long angry rant about her former work in the wholesale lending industry, Siroya is leaning forward, attentively, despite the fact that she’s practically a lending savant.
Siroya founded her company in 2011 to lend to customers in developing countries who traditional banks won’t help. With backing from heavyweights like PayPal, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital (who bet early and big on Twitter, Instagram, and Uber), and Revolution Growth, Tala has delivered over $1 billion in small unsecured loans to more than 4 million people in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, and has more than 500 employees around the world. This August, a $110 million Series D investment round led by RPS Ventures lifted the company’s valuation to an estimated $800 million. With Tala’s rise to the top of the microloans space, Siroya has become a familiar face in fintech, regularly evangelizing her mission to “democratize finance” at tech and business conferences. On these stages, she stands out, not only for being a rare woman — and person of color — helming a financial startup, but for her unique brand of quiet, introspective leadership.
At work, Siroya’s desk is cluttered with sloth-themed tchotchkes and plushies that employees have given her on birthdays. She calls the slowest mammal her “spirit animal,” which seems…
