Kissht raises $10m in Series B funding

Mumbai-based digital lending platform Kissht has raised $10m in a funding round led by Fosun RZ Capital, the Venture Capital arm of Fosun International, with participation from Prophet Capital, Beijing and existing investors Ventureast and Endiya Partners.

Kissht is a credit-led payment solutions company that provides consumers seamless and easy-to-access credit (EMI without card) for purchases across online and offline channels.

The company will use the funding to expand its reach among more offline and online merchants, enhance its data science capabilities and venture into additional categories.

Kissht co-founders  Krishnan Viswanathan & Ranvir Singh said consumer credit in India is still largely untapped.  

"Digital India is changing that rapidly, helping Kissht address this market in a prudent and cost-effective manner. The disruption posed by smart phones, AI, dispersed nature of opportunity, and changing consumption behaviour provides massive room for innovative business models," they said.  

The founder also pointed out that Kissht's unique model has helped keep customer acquisition cost one-fifth of the market and sustaining this as the company scale up will be the priority.

Core to Kissht's technology is a credit IP that leverages alternate data sets and is able to assess credit worthiness of new-to-credit and lower income segments in a real-time and instant process to enable on-the-spot purchase.

The company has developed its own self-learning proprietary algorithm which assesses a customer's credit profile in a fraction of a second based on over 2,000 digital footprints and approves loans instantly.

Kissht previously raised $3 million in a series A round from Ventureast and Endiya Partners in 2016 and in seed capital before. Currently Kissht is present in over 50 online and over 3,000 offline retailers across categories including consumer durables, electronics, health care and education, enabling customers to easily access credit for their purchases.

Commenting on the development, Ventureast  Partner K A Srinivasan said technology not only brings non-linearity to the business growth but also enables unbiased credit appraisal and an independent view for lending metrics.

"Thanks to India stacks and advances in Machine Learning, the turnaround time will be cut down to hours for processing a loan and the decision making will be more robust with the use of non-conventional variables. Kissht is in the right place at the right time and is well-poised to redefine consumer lending practices with its AI based tech engine. We are happy to be a part of this journey as Krishnan and Ranvir take consumer credit to hitherto under-served masses," he said.

Kissht is a credit-led payment solutions company that provides consumers seamless and easy to access credit for purchases across online and offline channels. Core to their technology is a credit IP that leverages alternate data sets and is able to assess credit worthiness of new-to-credit and lower income segments in a real-time / instant process to enable on-the-spot purchase.

The Kissht platform is a fully digitized and automated fulfillment platform that supports all types of credit led purchases - an EMI-based loan, a debit-card EMI solution (leveraging bank transaction data of the customer) and credit-card EMI solutions. The platform is fully integrated with credit bureaus, Aadhar, UPI and NSDL.
Kissht was founded in 2015 by former McKinsey consultants Krishnan Vishwanathan and Ranvir Singh who have extensive experience in financial services, digital and mobile sectors.

About Fosun RZ Capital:
Fosun RZ Capital is a leading venture capital fund rooted in China and covering the world's major economic areas. Fosun RZ Capital is based in Beijing and backed by Fosun Group. As one of the few international venture capital platforms in China, RZ Capital has fostered innovation ecosystems in China, U.S., and India, with offices in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Silicon Valley, New Delhi and Bangalore. RZ Capital invests in Angel to VC and growth stages, with focus on Internet application on Industries and frontier technologies.

About Prophet Capital:
Prophet Capital is a cutting-edge tech-driven investment firm, investing with a long-term horizon and employing a fundamental approach. The team focuses on Big-Data, Artificial Intelligence and Fin-Tech, and invests across all equity stages. The firm has offices in Beijing and Chicago.

About Ventureast:
Ventureast is one of the longest standing Venture capital fund managers in India, investing since 1997 and managing close to $400+ million. The company has a diverse portfolio of more than 100 investments in Technology, Healthcare and Clean Environment. Ventureast is possibly the only Indian Fund Manager that has dedicated funds and teams for each sector- life sciences & healthcare, and separately for technology driven businesses. Our hallmark has been to build companies to leadership from early-stage through innovation. For more information, visit us at http://www.ventureast.net/


About Endiya Partners:
Endiya Partners is an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in innovation led product start-ups based in India with global potential. We believe in co-creation while leveraging our deep domain understanding and vast entrepreneurial and operating experience to build world-class companies. Endiya's portfolio consists of disruptive and category-defining start-ups across Technology, Healthcare and Consumer sectors.
www.endiya.com