Ahmedabad-based Lendingkart, which provides lending service to small and medium enterprises, has raised around ₹25 crore in its debt funding round from the State Bank of India.
This comes just months after the fin-tech startup raised around ₹70 crore from Sistema Asia Fund as well as existing investors Bertelsmann India Investment, Mayfield India, Saama Capital and others.
The funding will be used by the company to bolster its loan book. The fresh capital will also help the startup to expand its geographical reach to over 950 cities. The money will also be used to widen Lendingkart Finance’s offering to SMEs across the country.
Commenting on the fundraise from SBI, Lendingkart Technologies co-founder and CEO Harshvardhan Lunia said,
We feel extremely privileged to have partnered with India’s largest bank which also shares the same vision of supporting the unbanked SME sector. SBI, being one of the oldest and largest banks, has played a critical role in shaping India’s financial landscape for the last century.
The company was founded in 2014 by ex-banker Harshvardhan Lunia and former ISRO scientist Mukul Sachan. Lendingkart is an instant working capital finance platform that provides SMEs with easy access to credit and working capital.
The startup has offices in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru , and Mumbai, and claims to have disbursed more than 20,000 loans to over 12,000 SMEs across 23 diverse sectors. The lending startup is currently in the process of expanding its operations to over 950 cities across 29 states and seven union territories.
It uses proprietary technology tools based on machine learning algorithms and big data analytics to determine a borrower’s creditworthiness. Currently, the company provides short-term working capital loans ranging from ₹50,000 to ₹10,00,000.