Fintech platform KreditBee has raised $80 million from existing investors Azim Premji’s Premji Invest, Motilal Oswal Alternates, TPG-backed NewQuest Capital Partners, and Mirae Asset Ventures, the company said on December 2. Japan's MUFG Bank joined in as a new investor in the round.
The company said that the funds will be used to diversify KreditBee’s product portfolio and strengthen its tech stack.
The platform facilitates personal loan disbursals of up to Rs 4 lakh to salaried individuals through its partner non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) including IIFL Finance, Northern Arc Capital, Vivriti Capital, Poonawala Fincorp, PayU Finance, Piramal Finance, among others.
The company also has its own in-house RBI-registered NBFC Krazybee Services, which also lends to customers on the platform. Besides personal loans, the company also offers checkout finance options and digital gold.
Madhusudan E, Co-Founder & CEO of KreditBee, said, "The investment adds more weight to our vision of encouraging financial independence through a smart digital experience, which is what India stands for today. With the current round, we look forward to expand our set of solutions to serve our growing consumer base."
KreditBee also said that it further plans to diversify its product offering by venturing into secured loans, home loans, and credit lines. This involves expanding its lending portfolio by introducing financial services like insurance, credit score report, and merchant-side offers, among others.
Shashank Joshi, Deputy CEO and Head Global Corporate Banking, MUFG India, said, "KreditBee is run on the ethos of enabling underserved customers an easy access to financial products through tech-enabled underwriting. We are very excited to partner with KreditBee in their growth journey of providing financial services to millions of customers."
The company said that it expects to cross Assets Under Management (AUMs) of $1 billion in the next six to nine months time. Currently, the platform has six million loan customers of which two million are active customers.
After seeing the highest amount of investments in 2021, venture capital funding dried down globally in 2022 owing to a bear market, global recession fears and rising inflation and interest rates. A number of Indian startups have found it difficult to attract new investors and raise large rounds in this difficult environment, and existing investors have stepped in with follow-on rounds in many cases.
KreditBee has raised a total of $200 million till date. In its Series C round in March 2021, the company had raised $70 million from NewQuest Capital Partners and Motilal Oswal Private Equity.
This year was also crucial for digital lenders like KreditBee as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced regulations for digital lenders and enablers, the deadline for which was on November 30.
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