Mortgage-tech firm Easy Home Finance Ltd and peer-to-peer lending marketplace PaisaDukan.com have raised institutional funding.
Easy Home Finance said in a statement it secured an undisclosed amount in an asset financing deal from Harbourfront Capital, a subsidiary of Anypay Inc. It will use the funds to expand its assets under management and upgrade technology.
Harboufront Capital specialises in asset investment in emerging platforms, for example sharing economy and peer-to-peer lending among others with diverse partners in India, Indonesia and Japan.
“We believe Easy Home Finance is in the best position to benefit from the country’s ongoing reform of the real estate finance market, underpinned by the rising demand for properties,” said Shinji Kimura, founder of Harbourfront Capital.
Easy Home Finance, which is registered under the National Housing Bank, was launched in 2017. It has developed its own proprietary AI-based technology that includes onboarding, assessing and management of the home loans. The fin-tech firm is focussed on providing home loans to the first home buyer and women as co-owners in tier-2 and tier-3 cities across the country.
Easy Home Finance founder Rohit Chokhani said there has been much negative sentiment in the market surrounding NBFC's/HFC's but in the recent budget the government has recognised that financial institutions play an extremely important role in the economy.
In another transaction in the fin-tech space, peer-to-peer lending marketplace PaisaDukan.com has raised its second round of institutional funding from JITO Incubation & Innovation Foundation (JIIF).
The company, which is run by Mumbai-based fintech firm BigWin Infotech Pvt. Ltd, has raised $1.3 million since its inception in November 2017, according to the statement.
Launched by Rajiv M Ranjan, PaisaDukan is a P2P lending marketplace platform where borrowers can take loans from investors (lenders) who are willing to lend their money for an agreed upon interest rate. It also provides legal and recovery support, principal protection, and evaluation of credit risk by a proprietary algorithm.
Ranjan said that the current round of funding will support financing in rural India through P2P lending and will help in hiring experienced key resources to support company’s rural expansion.
“Infusion of additional funding from JIIF has showcased investors’ confidence in our business strategy,” said Ranjan, who earlier worked with Welspun Group and Infosys.
Peers
The peer-to-peer lending space has seen several startups drawing investors attention. In January 2019, Mumbai-based peer-to-peer lending platform LiquiLoans, one of the few players to have got the P2P licence, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing investor Matrix Partners India. In November last year, venture capital firm IvyCap Ventures Advisors Pvt Ltd backed Lendbox, a peer-to-peer lending and credit marketplace.
The fintech segment has seen a lot of activity over the past few months, with companies seeking to provide customers with new-age products as well as address gaps in the financial services sector.
Recently, Sachin Bansal, cofounder of ecommerce major Flipkart, has added several fin-tech firms to his portfolio list namely Kissht and Lendingkart Finance Ltd, the lending arm of Lendingkart.
Earlier this month, Bengaluru-based digital banking startup NiYO Solutions mobilised $35 million in a Series B funding round from investors including Chinese conglomerate Tencent.