Mumbai, NFAPost: Lending platform LenDenClub raised $10 million (Rs 75.5 crore) from a consortium of institutional and retail investors.
“The fresh capital will be used to expand our loan book to $1 billion and upscale the user-base to 10 million by fiscal 2022-23 from 2.5 million currently,” said the city-based lender in a statement on Tuesday.
With the new funding, LenDenClub, valued at $51 million, aims to scale up substantially, eyeing a 5X growth in disbursals over the next 18 months.
“The company plans to invest in upgrading its proprietary tech-stack platform and growing customer base while supporting banking operations on its platform,” said the statement.
Co-founded by Bhavan Patel and Dipesh Karki in 2016, the lender has 2.5 million borrowers and 1 million investors.
It has disbursed loans worth Rs 2,000 crore, including Rs 1,200 crore during the last 6 months of this fiscal (2021-22), registering a whopping 1,900 per cent growth.
Among the new investors are Artha Venture Fund, CRED founder Kunal Shah, Policybazaar co-founder Alok Bansal, Livspace co-founder Ramakant Sharma, Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya, Promaxo co-founder Krishna Bhupal, Tuscan Ventures and Ohm stock brokers.
The company earlier claimed that it was the only player in the P2P lending space across the country to have turned profitable by expanding market footprint, accelerate product development and upgrade technology platform,
“We leverage technology to bring borrowers and investors on a single platform for providing hassle-free loans to borrowers and offer investment options to investors across the country,” said Patel in the statement.
Powered by a digital-first approach while offering its customers a smart, speedy and easy to use platform, LenDenClub is eyeing to offer a host of financial services as the next frontier, transitioning to a digital banking model.
Besides strengthening leadership, the lender is set to make strategic c-suite appointments and increase the operational team size by 2022-23.
“We emphasise on leveraging technology creatively while adapting to an ever-evolving financial services marketplace,” said Patel on the occasion.
The company has been inventing products for greater returns to its investors and democratising credit, while offering competitive rates for its borrowers.
Artha Venture Fund managing partner Anirudh Damani said the start-up was blessed to have a trove of investors.
“We are eager to see where this round of investment takes us and the path it charts for itself,” said Damani.
The fintech firm earlier raised $1.5 million as part of its pre-series A round co-led from venture capital (VC) fund Artha in August 2019./eom/415 words.
