[Funding alert] P2P lending startup LenDenClub raises $1M led by Artha Venture Fund
The company said the funding will be utilised to expand its senior management team, develop innovative lending products, and to expand its geographical reach to 12 states.
P2P lending platform LenDenClub has raised pre-Series A funding of $1 million led by Artha Venture Fund. The round also saw participation from family offices including UAE-based Transworld Group, as well as some marquee angel investors.
The company said the funding will be utilised to expand its senior management team, develop innovative lending products, and expanding its geographical reach to 12 states.
Started in 2016, LenDenClub offers small ticket loans directly to lenders and leverages its proprietary tech-stack to reduce the time taken to underwrite a loan. Loans that meet the minimum preset qualification criteria get approved within five minutes, and those that are rejected are underwritten by a back-end team with a two-hour turnaround on the lending decision, the company claims.
The approved borrower profiles go live on a special lender app where over 10,000 active lenders choose whom they want to lend to.
Bhavin Patel, Co-Founder and CEO, LenDenClub said,
“The current funding round gives us the ability to double our reach and continue our quest in finding creditworthy borrowers that are not being serviced by the current financial institutions. We also aim to double the number of lenders on the platform to reach Rs 500 crore disbursal in the next 18 months.”
Other features of the platform include the startup’s InstaMoney, which services a gap that banks and NBFCs cannot fulfill - providing small-ticket loans disbursed into the bank accounts of salaried individuals within 24 hours.
Further, the startup claims to be making revenues through registration fees and success fees charged to lenders and borrowers.
Currently, it is has borrowers from six states with more than half a million individuals registered on the platform, and has disbursed more than 50,000 P2P loans, with a total loan book of Rs 60 crore.
Just this month, P2P lending platform Faircent also announced it has raised an undisclosed amount of capital in a funding round, led by Singapore-based Das Capital and Gunosy Capital, with participation from the company’s existing investors Starharbor Asia Pte Ltd, and M&S Partners Pte Ltd (Sin Growth Partner Pte Ltd).
(Edited by Megha Reddy)