Mumbai-based consumer lending startup PaySense raises $18 M from PayU, others

Naspers’ backed PayU on Friday announced it had made an investment of $11.5 million in Mumbai-based consumer lending startup PaySense, as part of a Series B funding round of $18 million. Existing investors Jungle Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the round.

The news comes a year after the Mumbai-based fintech announced its Series A round of $5.3 million from Jungle Ventures. The Series A round also saw participation from Naspers Group and existing investor Nexus Venture Partners.

Started in 2015, PaySense is a consumer lending platform that gives users credit in a customised manner. PaySense EMI, their personalised line of credit, is similar to a personal loan and can be used to make instant purchases, whether online or offline, through affordable EMI plans. The upper limit of credit disbursed is Rs 2 lakh, which will soon be increased to Rs 5 lakh.

This is PayU’s second round of investment in PaySense, which will help realise PayU’s vision of seamless credit access to all.

Speaking about the investment, Fady Abdel-Nour, Global Head - M&A and Investments, Naspers' PayU, said, 

"Our mission at PayU has always been to democratise credit across all our markets. Companies like PaySense encompass everything we're looking for - a great product, an outstanding team and an extensive market opportunity. We’re excited to continue to synergise forces with PaySense, and are positive that this investment will help us strengthen our position in the consumer lending space in India. We believe India’s fin-tech story is just getting started and will continue to invest in this space”

Prashanth Ranganathan, Co-Founder and CEO, PaySense, added,

"We continue to invest in our tech and team to deliver an exceedingly simple, fast and fully-digital process for our customers. At this time, it’s opportune to bolster our relationship with PayU, as we share an allied vision of enabling more consumers in India to access the digital credit sector. The consumer lending market in India is ripe for disruption and this capital will equip us to focus on this huge, untapped market potential.”

In January 2015, the company had raised $2.3 million led by Nexus Venture Partners and prominent global angels.

Siddhartha Jajodia, Global Head of Credit Business, PayU, said, 

“The strategic use of data is something we firmly believe in at PayU. PaySense is a great example of a company which is doing just this in India. PaySense has a robust growth trajectory and we believe it has high potential to become a strong alternative to the current credit infrastructure. PaySense’s ambition of reaching out to underserved consumers to provide access to credit resonates with PayU’s strategy. This investment in PaySense is part of an overarching goal to reinforce our credit portfolio in India, and we will continue to strive for that through a mix of organic and investment approach.”

The short-term loan market is seeing a lot of new players cropping up. In the credit line segment, there is MoneyTap, which recently received a massive $12.3 million in funding from Sequoia India, along with existing investors NEA and Prime Venture Partners.

Just this week, digital lending platform for personal loans Stashfin announced that it had partnered with non-banking finance company DMI Finance to raise Rs 30 crore for onward lending through its platform, StashFin.com.

There are also commerce-driven lending platforms like Kissht as well as ZestMoney. Recently, Amazon-backed Capital Float also announced its entry into the consumer lending space. After piloting for close than a year, Capital Float said that it was adding close to 15,000 B2C customers on a monthly basis.