Peer to peer lending and credit marketplace Lendbox has secured pre-Series A round from IvyCap Ventures. Following the investment IvyCap’s Vice President Akanksha Sharma will join the Delhi-based startup’s board.
The investment round is kept undisclosed, however, Entrackr‘s sources indicate it is somewhere in the range of Rs 5 crore to 6 crore.
The bootstrapped startup will deploy the capital raised towards ramping up its product, efficiency and bring more users on its platform.
A brainchild of Bhuvan Rustagi, Ekmeet Singh, Jatin Malwal, Lendbox connects the underserved market of borrowers and lenders.
Unlike traditional banks and financial institutions, Lendbox cuts down the interest rates for borrowers and increases investor’s profits by eliminating mediators like commercial banks, depository institutions, among others.
The startup’s automated cash management system collects the EMIs or disburses the loans from borrowers to investors and vice versa.
Based on borrowers social, professional, behavioural analysis, such as salary expenditure, Lendbox assesses their credit-worthiness.
With 1,4303 registered investors and 1,39,345 borrowers, Lendbox has a loan book of Rs 35.7 crore.
Launched in 2015, Lendbox competes with Faircent, LendenClub, and i2iFunding that have received decent fundings in p2p lending space.
According to TransUnion CIBIL’s 2018 report, there are over 150 million consumers who are eligible for credit but are unserved by banks. While digital lending space is growing fast in India, the lack of regulations and high default rates have been a roadblock for these p2p lenders.
The startup’s lead investor IvyCap had recently announced an Angel fund with a target corpus of up to Rs 60 crore that would be deployed into early-stage startups. Founded by Vikram Gupta, the VC fund counts Purplle, GrabOnRent, Bluestone, Ftcash, among several others in its portfolio.
