[Funding alert] After 3 months of stealth, this startup aims to make home loans digital, raises Rs 8 Cr

During the pandemic, Pramod Kathuria and Vishal Dawda had realised that the one segment that technology is yet to reach in the financial services sector is home loans as a product. It continues to be lengthy, tedious, and paper-driven. The turnaround time is seven to 60 days. It also has a lot of human interventions and interactions.

“The processes aren’t standardised at all. Furthermore, during the pandemic, the process of meeting people couldn’t happen and most other loan forms had gone digital but home loans as a product isn’t that digitised,” says Pramod in a conversation with YourStory.

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Thus, along with Vishal, he started Easiloan in Mumbai five months ago. The startup was in stealth mode before its launch in July 2021 and now aims to offer an all-digital front-end to banks — from sourcing, onboarding to completing credit appraisals — for the home loan application.

Easiloan has raised its maiden round of Rs 8 crore from Tomorrow Capital. It aims to utilise these funds for building further on their digital-only product, customer acquisition channels, and activate new markets.

How does it help?

The Easiloan platform makes selection and application for loans extremely easy and fast for customers, reduces the time taken to process the home loan application, and increases conversion for developers and banks.

“The problem we are trying to address is — one is the efficiency, where the customer despite multiple searches doesn’t get the best match, and another problem is turnaround time. The idea is to re-imagine the way the home loans are processed, we can use digital platforms for the documents, KYC, credit learning, and writing, where banks can do a digital credit appraisal,” adds Pramod.  

The application brings developers, direct selling agents (DSAs), customers, banks, and NBFCs on a single platform for end-to-end digital processing of home loans. The proprietary AI-based feature allows customers to compare and choose from shortlisted options based on their profile. 

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The problem for different stakeholders

“The developer is invested in the deal, but the wait for the deal to happen takes 30-100 days for the cash flow. Now it isn’t like the bank isn’t willing to lend, but the process needs to be completed. Also, the customer is unable to find the right lending partner that makes the process easier for them,” says Pramod. 

He explains that on Easiloan, the customer is given options that work best for them. There is an AI-based match-making engine that profiles the customers based on personal and financial parameters. “You are offered only lenders interested in your profile,” adds Pramod. 

Thus, for developers, this means faster cashflows and fewer losses on account of cancelled bookings due to un-serviced loans. It also addresses the issue of opportunity losses for real estate developers on account of apartments blocked by customers whose loans eventually do not get serviced.

“Easiloan.com’s tech-enabled ‘green channel’ for lending institutions ensures better processing time using a proprietary AI-based engine for credit appraisal and analysis before directing to banks for fulfilment,” adds Pramod.

The startup has already serviced over 750 successful loan sanctions and is working with the top 15 banks and housing finance companies in the market, like HDFC Ltd, ICICI Bank, LIC, Axis Bank, SBI, PNB HF, to name a few.

Speaking of their investment Rohini Prakash, CEO, Tomorrow Capital said,

“We’re very excited about partnering with Easiloan as it aims to solve some of the large issues plaguing the home loan industry, providing a vastly improved customer experience by allowing customers to make informed decisions about their home loans, and much smoother digital home loan processing. Pramod’s background in building high-performance organisations and his sharp understanding of home buyers and the gaps in the home loan process convinced us to partner with him in this effort.” 

According to techsciresearch, the homeland market is set to grow at 22 percent between 2021 and 2026. There are startups like Navi Loans, BASIC, Easy, and several others operating in the home loans segment. 

Easiloan is already servicing home loans for several developers in Mumbai and has recently expanded in Bengaluru and Pune with an aim to further scale up over the next few months. 

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