UPES alumnus sets up India’s first digital pension platform

PensionBox, founded in 2021 by UPES alumnus Kuldeep Parashar, attempts to customise pension planning for people according to their needs and specifications

PensionBox is India’s first digital pension platform that seeks to re-imagine retirement for millions of people. PensionBox is the first to introduce the concept of digital pension or self-planned pension for non-government workers.

Founded in 2021 by UPES alumnus Kuldeep Parashar, PensionBox attempts to personalise pension planning according to the needs and specifications of individuals, irrespective of their retirement age, location or vocation.

Kuldeep, a student of B.Tech. in Applied Petroleum Engineering (Upstream) at UPES from 2010-14, hit upon the idea of PensionBox while working out a retirement plan for his parents one evening.

While at it, the former business analyst realised that there were millions of other Indians living just like his parents, without a concrete pension plan in place, and thus, the idea of PensionBox took shape.

“It all started with the thought of planning our parents’ retirement when my younger brother Shivam and I created a retirement plan and calculated how much is needed for their retirement,” Kuldeep recalls. “As we looked deeper, we realised that we were not alone in this. Millions of Indians did not have retirement or pension and stayed dependent on their families,” he adds.

By 2050, India will have an elderly population of 340 million without enough retirement savings if action is not taken, Kuldeep warns.

“Hence, PensionBox was born to make an impact and empower the people to plan their retirement and stay financially independent in their old age or retire early and follow their dreams,” he adds.

Kuldeep says he is thankful to UPES for helping his start-up take off.

“We are incubated by the UPES Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (UCIE) and I am proud that UCIE is among the first ones to believe in PensionBox,” the young entrepreneur says. “I visited the campus after seven years of my graduation in October 2021 but this time as a founder and incubatee to share PensionBox’s vision and learn from mentors and professors there,” he adds.

PensionBox is a cloud-based, AI-enabled technology platform which provides a simple, flexible, transparent, and a secure way of retirement planning. Because it is paperless, instant and online, it allows its users to top up or change or pause their saving frequency at any time without any penalties.

One can start saving with as much or as little as one likes. It helps people plan, save, invest and track their pensions with complete flexibility to achieve total financial freedom when they retire.

The company already has over 500 subscribers, through a community of co-creators that PensionBox secured just a few months after its inception.

For the uninitiated, co-creation is the process of building a solution to a problem by joining hands with the people who are facing it. For decades, companies have made products first and then sold them to the users through marketing and advertising. Some companies did great and some didn’t. Co-creation bridges the gap between a company and its customers. Companies know about their customers’ needs and the customers see the product in making from day one.

Before going public, PensionBox aims to refine its product further using feedback from its co-creators.

“At PensionBox, we are solving the great Indian retirement and pension problem for millions of Indian people. We believe our people can stay financially independent in their most vulnerable years (old age). We are doing it by joining hands with people who want to solve the problem with us as our co-creators,” Kuldeep proudly says.