Fin-tech startups have generated a lot of investors interest over the past year. And with the govt.’s demonetization move, it seems like a golden time for such startups. IndiaLends, a Delhi-based finance technology startup has raised $4 million in its Series A funding round.
The funding round was led by American Express Ventures along with the participation of company’s existing investors – DSG Consumer Partners and AdvantEdge Partners.
The amount raised in the current round will be used by the startup to expand its team, especially to grow its data sciences and analytics team. It is also planning to expand its footprints to tier-2 and tier-3 cities over the next few weeks. A chunk of it will also be used for enhancing its portfolio of mobile products.
With participation in IndiaLend’s Series A round, American Express marks its second investment in an Indian startup. Earlier, it led Rs 35 crore Series C funding round in personal assistant platform Tapoz.
Commenting on the investment, Rohit Bodas, partner, American Express Ventures, said,
IndiaLends’ platform is helping to connect lenders and borrowers in India more efficiently by providing a user-friendly experience for consumers and leveraging a broader set of data than has traditionally been available to financial institutions in the market.
Gaurav Chopra, co-founder, IndiaLends, said,
This new round of funding not only gives us the capital to scale exponentially but also provides us access to resources and learnings from developed fintech markets such as the US and China.
IndiaLends was founded in 2015 by former Capital One executives Gaurav Chopra and Mayank Kachhwaha. It is one-stop credit shop that caters to both, consumers and financial institutions. The company’s vision is to improve credit scoring techniques in the country and help more people get access to organized credit at better interest rates.
There is an unorganized lending market in India and organized lending is available only to few with high CIBIL scores. The remaining borrowers are at the mercy of unorganized lenders and loan sharks, and end up paying high interest rates.
IndiaLends aims to change that and help both borrowers and lenders make better credit decisions. The biggest differentiator of IndiaLends is that they are not balance sheet lender as they do not take credit risk.
On the B2C side, consumers can, through the startup’s platform, connect with financial institutions, including banks such as IDFC, HDFC and ICICI, as well, as NBFCs such as Bajaj FinServe, Capital First and IIFL to avail loans. On the enterprise side, IndiaLends provides credit risk scoring services and cross-sells analytics products.
