Lendingkart raises Rs 200 Cr in debt

Lendingkart, a micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) focused digital lending platform, has secured Rs 200 crore in a debt financing round led by Temasek-backed EvolutionX Debt Capital in order to finance the firm’s working capital requirements.

The company plans to utilise the raised funds to feed acquisition and scale up its technology business, Lendingkart said in a press release.

Lendingkart has so far raised around Rs 1,050 crore in equity from investors like Fullerton Financial Holding, Bertelsmann, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, Sistema Asia and India Quotient.

This comes at a time when startups are increasingly opting to raise debt capital amid a valuation mismatch and delay in equity funding in India. The company is seeking to raise another Rs 600 crore in equity to expand and grow its business.

Co-founded in 2014 by Harshvardhan Lunia and Mukul Sachan, Lendingkart disburses loans with an average ticket size of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh to the MSME business owners. In a move to expand its products, Lendingkart is planning to launch credit on UPI in the next two-three months. In April this year, the Reserve Bank of India permitted banks to transfer pre-sanctioned credit lines through the UPI network.

Lendingkart claims to have disbursed around Rs 4,000 crore worth of loans as of FY23 and is looking to clock around Rs 6,000 crore of disbursal by the end of the current financial year and around Rs 10,000 crore in the next two years. The company is also planning to clock a profit before tax of Rs 200 crore in FY24.