InCred founder, Paragon Partners & HNIs raise Rs 300 Cr to incubate new business

InCred, a digital lending app has secured a funding of Rs 300 crore led by founder Bhupinder Singh and its private equity investors like Paragon Partners by Siddharth Parekh.

As per a Mint report, Bhupinder Singh has invested around Rs 40 crore, Paragon Partners has contributed Rs 50 crore to the fund. The remaining sum was poured in by High Net-Worth Individuals (HNIs).

The purpose behind this collection of funds by the Singh led firm is to diversify its lending business model from being focussed on consumers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across four lending verticals - Consumer finance, education, budget housing, and SMEs.

InCred with this money is expected by the investors to incubate new businesses. In July there was another report by Mint claiming that the financial service platform may enter into the wholesale lending business by raising new funds.

So far, Incred has raised about $75 million (in 2016 led by Anshu Jain) and it was in talks to raise Rs 1000 crore via equity selling in September this year.

As far as the activities of InCred's competitors in the current year are concerned, many of them have raised significant amounts. Out of these, Lendingkart seems to have bagged most funds with $87 million in Series C from Fullerton Financial Holdings by Temasek in February, and Rs 300 crore in debt round by Aditya Birla Sunlife AMC in August beginning.

IndiaLends clocked $10 million in series B round by ACPI Investment Managers and Ganesh Ventures in mid-2018, with LoanTap bagging $6.25 million by Shunwei Capital around the same time.

Nearing September end, Qbera also received a funding of $3 million from Essel Group subsidiary - E City Ventures.

Overall, as per a report by EY and Private Equity and Venture Capital Association cited in Mint, financial service sector in India saw investment worth $4 billion in the first half of the calendar year 2018.

The pattern clearly points to the high interest of VCs in the financial services sector in Indian startup ecosystem, especially in the digital lending platforms. What remains to be seen is how these companies perform in the market with the funds they have raised.