Fintech startup Lendingkart Finance Limited on Tuesday announced that the company has raised Rs. 30 crore in non-convertible debentures from a Dutch development bank, Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden N.V. (FMO), that invests in growth and frontier markets.
The new investment will be used towards growing the loan book and expanding the reach of Lendingkart Finance across SME industries in different parts of the country.
This is Lendingkart Finance's first-ever foreign debt raise till date.
"With a committed portfolio of €9.8 billion, FMO is one of the larger bilateral private sector development banks globally and we are elated to welcome them on board. We are looking to build a long-term relationship with them that will help us achieve our growth goals going ahead," said CEO and co-founder Lendingkart Technologies, Harshvardhan Lunia.
"These freshly raised capital from our first financial inclusion and impact focused global fund, will be utilized to refuel our loan books that will allow us to cater to a wider range of SMEs who need working capital finance," he added.
"Digital lending is an exciting and a large space that has grown tremendously in the last couple of years. The innovation that the sector has witnessed has played a key role in bringing financial inclusivity to the remotest corners of India. We greatly look forward to working with them to further their vision of financial and digital inclusion among SMEs across the country," said head of financial institutions Asia from FMO, Marnix Monsfort.
Aligned with the government's agenda of building financial inclusion, Lendingkart Finance is working towards ensuring availability of working capital for SMEs across the country that currently do not have access to credit or are capital deficient.
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Lendingkart Finance uses robust 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. Once the evaluation process is completed, loan amount is disbursed to the deserving borrower within 72 hours from the time of application.
As the company expands its reach to over 950 cities across India, these funds, which are Lendingkart Finance's first-ever foreign debt transactions, will come in handy to widen its offerings to SMEs country-wide.
As of today, Lendingkart Finance has disbursed over 20,000 loans to more than 13,000 SMEs across 23 diverse sectors.