[Funding alert] Fintech startup Lendingkart raises Rs 212 Cr in equity round led by existing investors

Fintech startup Lendingkart on Friday announced it has raised a fresh equity round of Rs 212 crore ($30 million) led by existing investors including Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd (“FFH”), Bertelsmann India Investments and India Quotient. 

With this funding round, the total equity raised by Lendingkart stands at $143 million. The startup will use the funding to expand lending bases, deepen Lendingkart Group’s reach to small and underserved micro enterprises and further strengthen its technological and analytics capabilities. 

Harshvardhan Lunia, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Lendingkart Technologies, said, 

“We are pleased with the momentum in our business and this equity will help us meet the growth opportunities we are seeing. Micro and small businesses represent a vibrant yet underserved segment of the Indian economy. The support of all of our customers, investors and employees is empowering us to build the leading financial services platform for this segment.”

In June 2019, Alteria Capital infused Rs 80 crore debt capital in the startup. 

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Since its inception, Lendingkart Finance (the NBFC arm of Lendingkart Group) has evaluated nearly half a million applications, disbursing 60,000+ loans to more than 55,000 MSMEs in 1300+ cities across all 29 states and union territories of the nation. 

Commenting on the investment, Yeo Hong Ping, President, Fullerton Financial Holdings said, 

“Over the past year, Lendingkart’s business has seen robust growth and continues to exhibit great potential.  We are delighted to continue partnering with Lendingkart who has been at the forefront of making working capital digitally accessible for MSMEs, as India continues its journey towards becoming a digitally enabled country.”

Lendingkart Finance works towards ensuring availability of credit for small and micro enterprises across the country that either do not have access to credit or are capital deficient currently. The company said it leverages robust in-house technology tools based on big data analytics and machine learning algorithms to evaluate creditworthiness. By analysing thousands of data points to assess factors like financial health, comparative market performance, social reliability and compliance and a distinctive evaluation process, Lendingkart aims to disburse loans with minimal paperwork within 72 hours. 

Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director, Bertelsmann India Investments said, 

“Digital lending is revolutionising access to capital for MSMEs. With focused efforts of the Government and technological advances such as big data, digital lending has set the stage for disruption with greater formalisation, faster capital disbursements and vastly improved customer experience. We are proud to be a part of this incredible journey with Lendingkart as it continues to demonstrate market leadership in this space.”

Lendingkart is currently present in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Kolkata but have a service reach across India. The company’s consolidated revenue grew to Rs 91.8 crore last fiscal from Rs 35.6 crore in FY17.

It competes with the likes of Capital Float, NeoGrowth, and India Lends among others.

(Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan)

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