Indian-origin founder Arjun Agarwal has secured a $500,000 pre-seed funding round for his impact investment startup Inaam, marking the end of a five-year struggle shaped as much by immigration hurdles as fundraising challenges.
The raise, revealed exclusively in Agarwal’s interview with SmartCompany, includes backing from Startup Bootcamp, Hatcher+ and several family offices, enabling him to finally launch the platform he has been building since 2020.
Nagpur-born Arjun Agarwal moved to South Africa with his entrepreneur parents before pursuing a Master’s in Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne. Arriving in February 2020 just as COVID lockdowns hit, he launched the ArjSpeak podcast to support young founders and developed his fintech venture Inaam as his capstone project.
But Agarwal says the win comes after years of uncertainty as a migrant founder in Australia’s fintech sector, where visa insecurity often overshadows innovation. “Every six to 12 months, you’re waiting on a visa outcome,” he said.
“You can’t plan ahead, you can’t fundraise properly, and investors hesitate because of that uncertainty. I’ve had investors ask what happens if my visa isn’t renewed. That’s not a question most white founders ever get.”
Despite international experience across finance, education and investment banking, and recognition through a TEDx talk and speaking invitations at Davos, Agarwal is still waiting on a decision for his Global Talent Visa.
Agarwal says that Australia’s visa income thresholds fail to reflect startup realities. “I think the threshold is $160,000–$170,000. I don’t think any founder in Australia is taking that kind of salary from a startup,” he said, noting that the system rewards high corporate pay rather than entrepreneurial value creation.
The Global Talent Visa closed to new applications in December 2024 and has been replaced by an invite-only National Innovation Visa, creating further uncertainty for migrant-led ventures. Agarwal says such policies impose a silent penalty on ambitious founders who are not yet earning large salaries but are driving innovation and job creation.
Agarwal’s journey has included more than 100 rejections from venture capital investors, many questioning whether he could build a business here because he was not “from Australia”. He points to a homogeneous funding landscape and a lack of risk-tolerant capital, where founders who look different or sound different are routinely underestimated.
Agarwal insists that the barriers he has faced reinforce his determination to help others facing exclusion. Inaam plans to reinvest a significant portion of future profits to back women of colour, other founders of colour, and young innovators from disadvantaged backgrounds. “It shouldn’t have taken five years for a pre-seed, D2C fintech to come to life,” he said.
“But I’ve been told no, over and over again. Still, I didn’t stop. Giving up before I bring it into the world would be a disservice. My job is to make sure it comes to life.”
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