Kaleidofin secures $5.3 million from IDH Farmfit Fund to boost agri-financing

Funding

Neobank Kaleidofin has raised $5.3 million in equity funding from the IDH Farmfit Fund, bringing its total funding in the current round to $19 million. This follows an earlier $13.8 million investment led by Rabo Partnerships, with participation from Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Oikocredit, Omidyar Network India, and Flourish Ventures, the firm said in a statement on May 2.

The latest funding will help the company scale its lending operations and expand its credit scoring and risk assessment tools, particularly through its Ki Score platform.

Kaleidofin, founded in 2018 by Sucharita Mukherjee and Puneet Gupta, has over one million active transacting customers across India. It has created a localised and accessible footprint across 230 districts and 14 states in semi-urban and rural India.

The company is a consumer-facing neobank like Jupiter, EpiFi, Niyo, Freo, and others. However, the startup focuses on the informal customer segment.

It has four product offerings currently, KaleidoGoals, a goal-linked savings and investment-led solution; payment solutions under KaleidoPay; KiScore that uses artificial intelligence and big data to assess a consumer's credit health and help in underwriting; and KaleidoCredit, a 'credit as a platform' service for lending and debt capital markets use cases.

"Smallholder farmers form an important part of the economy, yet they remain vastly underserved by formal financial services. Through our collaboration with IDH Farmfit Fund, we aim to change this by creating specialized financial products that cater to the unique needs of farmers," said Sucharita Mukherjee, Co-founder & CEO, kaleidofin in a statement.

KaleidoPay allows customers who are unable to use the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to make digital as well as recurring payments.

Kaleidofin and IDH Farmfit Fund will jointly develop specialized financial products for the agricultural sector, including solutions for animal husbandry, farm automation, and climate-friendly practices. The partnership aims to transform agri-lending by offering tailored credit solutions instead of one-size-fits-all loans.

With this infusion, Kaleidofin’s total funding since inception reaches $42 million.  In 2018, the firm raised $2.8 million in a seed round led by Omidyar Network. Blume Ventures and Professor Shlomo Ben-Haim, an Israeli entrepreneur also participated in the round.

In 2022, Kaleidofin had $10 million (Rs 74 crore) in a Series B funding round led by the Dell family's charitable, non-profit private foundation Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.