Lendingkart Finance Limited has raised $10.51 million (~Rs 70 Crore) in form equity funding from investors including Singapore-based Sistema Asia Fund along with participation from current investors—Bertelsmann India Investment, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, India Quotient and Darrin Capital Management. The lending firm plans to use the fresh funds for increasing their loan book and strengthening its technology & analytical capabilities.
Note that Lendingkart operates a non-banking finance company (NBFC) and as we pointed out before, it is common for lending companies to raise debt funding to replenish their loan books. With this fresh funding, the company claims to have raised a total funding of INR 534 crore (~$83.28 million) of which equity funding includes Rs 243 crore and debt funding of Rs 291 crore.
Lendingkart provides loans ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 40 lakh on its platform and claims to sanctioned them in a day and disbursed within three days. The loans attract an interest rate of 16-24%. It adds that it requires minimum documentation, especially for e-commerce vendors, and businesses and sellers are not required to provide collateral or net worth details. The company claims it has approved over 11,000 loans to more than 10,000 SMEs till date. Lendingkart has tie-ups with CCAvenue, Paytm, Craftsvilla and Flipkart to provide merchants of these platforms financial assistance via loans.
The company says it uses in-house technology tools based on big data analytics and machine learning algorithms to evaluate its client’s creditworthiness. About 5,000 data variables are assessed to determine factors like financial health, comparative market performance, social reliability and compliance.
KountMoney Acqui-hire: In October last year, Lendingkart had acqui-hired KountMoney, an online lending marketplace for personal loans, to enhance to its data analytics and technology capabilities. Following the deal, KountMoney co-founders Deepak Modak, Gaurav Somani, Abhishek Periwal and Abhi Ranjan joined Lendingkart.
Previous Funding
- Last month Lendingkart raised $10 million in debt funding to expand its operations to 700 cities and restock its loan book.
- In June, the company raised debt funding worth Rs 50 crore from Yes Bank and raised $12 million debt funding during its $32 million Series B round.
- According to this Livemint report, the company had previously raised an undisclosed amount in debt from DCB Bank Ltd, though it doesn’t specify when this deal took place.
- In July last 2015, it raised $10 million from multiple investing firms and individuals for enhancing it technology stack and firing adding new talent.
- Lendingkart also raised Rs 3.8 crore in a seed from a cluster of investors in 2015.
