CreditMantri raises Rs 51.4cr in Series B funding from Quona Capital and existing investors

Credit management services company CreditMantri has raised Rs 51.4 crore ($7.6 million) in a Series B round of funding. The round was led by Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, managed by Quona Capital along with Newid Capital and existing investors Elevar Equity, IDG Partners, and Accion Venture Lab. Chennai-based CreditMantri bridges the gap between consumers and lenders by making credit possible.

The funds will be used to grow its user base, strengthen its product proposition, and build the team. Veda Corporate Advisors were the bankers to the transaction. CreditMantri had raised $2.5 million in a Series A round of funding from IDG Ventures India, Elevar Equity, and Accion Venture Lab in 2015.

CreditMantri was founded in 2012 by three former Citibank executives – Ranjit Punja, R Sudarshan, and Gowri Mukherjee. The company uses traditional data (such as credit reports) and alternative data (such as social media, data from mobile phones, etc.) to enable consumers to create their credit profile in order to understand their credit potential and make investment decisions.

Alternate data is particularly important for users who have limited choice and access to credit. The company has served over 1.4 million users till date, with over 60 percent of users providing access to over more than 2,000 credit relevant data points in order to build their credit profile using CreditMantri’s proprietary algorithm.

Ranjit says,

"The richness in the quality of our credit profiles is validated by the uptake and portfolio performance of the tailor-made loan products launched in partnership with financial institutions. The response from consumers and lenders has far exceeded our expectations and validates that we are solving a real market need.”

On the platform, users can discover loans, credit cards best matched to the profile from lenders across the risk continuum, resolve and dispute issues on existing loans and borrowings, and reduce current borrowing costs.

On the supply side, CreditMantri provides financial institutions access to better quality consumer risk profiles besides helping these institutions cut down on expensive credit operations processes and disburse loans faster. Consumer demand data on the platform is used to create custom credit products to address unmet credit needs, for example, providing unsecured personal credit lines for new to credit consumers or debt consolidation loans for credit-challenged consumers. They claimed that over 40 lenders already use the platform to source consumers, resolve past loan issues, and expand into new customer segments.

“Lending in India, and doing so responsibly, is a huge opportunity, and alternative data is the key to unlocking this potential. The digitisation of Indian consumers’ financial data, pioneered by CreditMantri, is the catalyst that will help build a truly financially inclusive India. Quona is very excited to partner with CreditMantri team and we have tremendous confidence in the team and the way they are solving this important problem,” says Ganesh Rengaswamy, Founding Partner at Quona Capital which manages the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund.

Website: Creditmantri