Existing investors Fullerton Financial Holdings, Bertelsmann India Investments and India Quotient participated in the round. Launched five years ago, the company raised $143 million to date. This latest funding will be used to expand its lending range, as well as refine and bulk up its product offering.
Lendingkart offers loans to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, issuing more than 60,000 loans to more than 55,000 SMBs in 1,300 cities across India so far.
“Micro and small businesses represent a vibrant yet underserved segment of the Indian economy. The support of all of our customers, investors and employees is empowering us to build the leading financial services platform for this segment,” said Harshvardhan Lunia, co-founder and managing director of Lendingkart, according to TechCrunch.
One of Lendingkart’s main rivals is Gurgaon-based Indifi, which raised a $21.32 million (Rs 145 crore) Series C round led by CDC Group earlier this week. As part of the transaction, CDC Group received 71,08,870 Series C CCPS and 100 equity shares each at a price of Rs 140.67, adding up to an investment worth $14.71 million (Rs 100 crore) in Indifi.
Founded in 2015, Indifi provides term loan, line of credit, invoice discounting, and merchant cash advancing services for companies in the travel, eCommerce, hotel, retail, and restaurant segments. It raised $10 million in a Series B round in December 2016, led by Omidyar Network, with participation from Accel Partners and Elevar Equity.
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“Indifi is dedicated to solving the credit issues faced by small businesses across sectors in the country,” said the firm’s CEO and Co-Founder Alok Mittal in a statement at the time. “Having spent over a decade as a VC and angel investor, I’ve seen several B2B companies use equity to fund working capital, as a result of which they are unable to realize their plans to scale up.”
