JOIN USFinTech startup Lendingkart Technologies aims to be a profitable digital lending platform by the end of next fiscal year.
The company, which has raised over Rs 1,129 crore of funding from 2014 to till now, provides easy access to credit for SMEs. It has disbursed over 22,000 loans so far.
Lendingkart, which recently raised over Rs 565 crore of equity funding in its Series C round, led by Singapore's Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd, along with participation from existing investors, will use the money towards building loan book, and a portion of it will be used for strengthening its technology, analytics and infrastructure.
Harshvardhan Lunia, co-founder and CEO of Lendingkart Technologies said that they will continue to focus only on MSMEs. "In the MSME sector, we provide loans to micro enterprises and the average ticket size of loans is Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. We will become profitable by FY19," Lunia said, adding that they are focusing on growing loan book.
A typical borrower is a small manufacturer or a kirana store owner or a small mobile store owner. The company's interest charges range between 16% and 24% and the maximum tenure of the loan is between 18 months and 24 months.
According to a study, 'Fintech India- The Changing Landscape of SME Lending', by MAPE, a leading Indian investment bank, even 5% of the unmet SME lending requirements in India could be a $15 billion opportunity by 2020. It says that in India, barely 10% of small organisations have access to formal credit.
Lendingkart will never deviate from its core lending business. "We would stick to our lending and try to look how to make life more easy through our lending products. We will be experimenting with size and length of the loan along with focus on increasing the number of borrowers who reach out to us. We would not be interested in going for consumer loan.," Lunia added.
With offices in three cities- Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, the company has provided loan to over 14,000 SMEs till now.