Lending platform KreditBee raises $70 million in its series C round, a month after it got $75 million

• KreditBee’s holding company Finnov has raised $70 million from TPG-backed NewQuest Capital Partners and Motilal Oswal Private Equity.
• The company’s latest round comes just a month after it had raised $75 million from the likes of Azim Premji’s Premji Invest and South Korean investment firm Mirae Assets Ventures.
• KreditBee claims to have a registered user base of over 25 million.

Fintech lending startup KreditBee’s holding company Finnov has raised $70 million from new investors TPG-backed NewQuest Capital Partners and Motilal Oswal Private Equity.

The company’s latest round comes just a month after it had raised $75 million from the likes of Azim Premji’s Premji Invest and South Korean investment firm Mirae Assets Ventures, with participation from Alpine Capital and Arkam Ventures.

KreditBee’s funding comes when fintech continues to be a hot sector in India, with lending startups having got a bigger push during COVID-19. During the pandemic, as people lost their jobs, or merchants looked to save their businesses, they turned to a lot more lending apps for financial support.

In fact, according to a Boston Consulting Group and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) report, the alternative lending sector is going to see increased investments – from $2.5 billion between 2016-2020 to $5.6 billion between 2021-2025.

KreditBee claims to have a registered user base of over 25 million. The three-year old company now hopes to use the funds to ‘expand the lending portfolio to different products, and develop an offline-online lending capability to bridge the consumer financing needs of Bharat (the term coined for India’s next millions of internet users from rural India)’.

“A complex demography like India requires simple, effective and impactful lending solutions, that comes with a deeper understanding of the consumer financing needs of the ecosystem. We are happy to onboard investment partners with us who share the same vision as we do as to how personal finance should graduate from a luxurious aspiration to a trivial commodity, available at the click of a button”, added Madhusudan E, co-founder and chief executive of KreditBee’s holding group entity.

Interestingly, KreditBee joins the list of startups, which are giving exits to their Chinese investors. KreditBee’s investor the Chinese investment firm Shunwei Capital had reportedly exited the firm last month. Shunwei had also recently exited another investment in India – Koo, the microblogging platform. “The conclusion of this round has led to an exit of most of the early-stage investors,” said KreditBee in a statement.

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