Finline: How Hari Sasi is Democratizing Fundraising Proposals for India’s MSMEs
For millions of entrepreneurs in India, the biggest hurdle to starting or scaling a business isn't the idea—it's the paperwork. Specifically, the dreaded "Project Report" required for a bank loan or a CMA report for professional fundraising. These documents, which can take weeks for a professional accountant to draft, are the gatekeepers of capital. Hari Sasi, Co-founder of Finline, is tearing down these gates. By building a DIY SaaS platform that generates professional financial proposals in minutes, Hari is ensuring that every entrepreneur in Bharat, regardless of their financial background, has a fighting chance at securing the funding they need.
Hari Sasi’s transition from a stable 10-year corporate career to the "solo journey" of entrepreneurship is a story of grit and clarity. Alongside his co-founder Midhun P. Nanadakumar, Hari identified that the complexity of financial reporting was stagnating the growth of India's 60 million MSMEs. In 2018, they launched Finline to automate this process, eventually scaling to over 15,000 customers across India without a massive marketing budget.
The MSME Loan Barrier
When an entrepreneur walks into a bank for a loan, the first thing they are asked for is a professional project report. For someone from a non-financial background, this often leads to expensive consulting fees or months of delays. Finline was built to provide a self-service tool that empowers the entrepreneur to be their own financial analyst.
The Problem: The "Middleman" Dependency
Traditionally, financial proposals and project reports are the domain of CAs and specialized consultants. While these professionals provide value, the process is often too slow and too expensive for a micro-entrepreneur. Many businesses never get off the ground because they cannot navigate the "Project Report" stage of a bank loan application.
"I had zero financial production family background," Hari explains. "But I saw that every entrepreneur was struggling with the same thing: How to create a professional project report that a bank would actually respect. We wanted to move this process from offline to online and make it accessible to everyone."
The Solution: A DIY Engine for Financial Growth
Finline is a unique DIY platform that takes the complexity out of financial modeling. By answering a series of simple questions about their business, users can generate high-fidelity reports that meet the stringent requirements of banks and investors.
The Finline Report Journey
- Profile Setup: Enter basic business details and the amount of funding required.
- Data Input: Answer guided questions about revenue projections, expenses, and assets.
- Automated Calculation: The Finline engine performs all the complex financial calculations (CMA, balance sheets, cash flows).
- Professional PDF: Download a bank-ready project report in minutes.
- Regional Support: Access the platform and support in regional languages like Malayalam and Marathi.
Scaling via "Regional Trust"
One of Finline's most successful growth hacks has been its focus on regional languages and communities. While many SaaS platforms focus on the English-speaking metro audience, Finline realized that the true heart of the MSME sector speaks regional languages. By building a presence in Malayalam and now expanding into Marathi, they have built a moat of trust that global competitors cannot easily replicate.
"We don't just sell a product; we tell the story of the result," Hari notes. "We use YouTube and regional influencers to show real examples of how an entrepreneur used Finline to get their loan approved. That word-of-mouth trust is our biggest marketing engine."
Finline Scale & Reach
- 15,000+ Customers: Serving entrepreneurs across every state in India.
- Pan-India Presence: Traction from the South to the North and Northeast.
- Regional Focus: Expanding into Marathi and other regional languages to reach Bharat.
- Bootstrap Roots: Built on financial discipline and a deep understanding of the MSME pain point.
Lessons in Resilience: The 10-Year Reset
For Hari, entrepreneurship is a "choice of life," not just a job. He emphasizes that being a founder requires a "split personality"—the ability to switch between the logic of an entrepreneur and the empathy of a human being. He warns that the life of a founder is not the "shiny, polished" life seen on LinkedIn, but one of constant sacrifice and "reading your own grave" before jumping in.
"It's a solo journey until you are successful," he reflects. "You have to believe in yourself 100% because no one will shake your hand when you are failing. Success is about endurance—being the one who stays alive for another day when others have quit."
Founder's Lesson: Complementary Skills
Hari attributes much of Finline's success to his partnership with Midhun. "Find a partner whose skills complement yours. If one is great at marketing, the other should be great at technology or operations. Shared character but different skills is the killer combination."
The Meaning of Entrepreneurship
Hari defines an entrepreneur as someone who is willing to lead a few years of their life like nobody else would, so they can live the rest of their life like nobody else can. It’s about the freedom to choose your own path and the responsibility of providing bread for the families of your employees. For him, the "unique feeling" of seeing an employee buy their first car because of the company’s success is the ultimate reward.
Finline is proving that the future of Indian finance is DIY. By automating the professional project report, Hari Sasi and his team are ensuring that for the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs, the "paperwork wall" is finally coming down.
About the Guest
Hari Sasi is the Co-founder of Finline. With over a decade of experience in the corporate sector, Hari chose to leave a stable career to address the financial reporting challenges faced by small businesses. Under his leadership, Finline has grown into a leading DIY platform for fundraising proposals, helping thousands of MSMEs across India navigate the complexities of bank loans and professional funding. He is a passionate advocate for regional-language technology and MSME empowerment.
Finline is an online DIY platform that helps entrepreneurs create professional financial proposals and bank-ready project reports. Based in Kerala and serving a pan-India audience, the platform uses automated logic to generate CMA reports and project financials, making fundraising accessible and affordable for the MSME sector.