Lendingkart Group, which comprises small and micro enterprise (SME) lender Lendingkart Finance Ltd and fintech platform Lendingkart Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has turned profitable for the financial year ended March.
The fintech company reported a profit of Rs 120 crore for FY23 against a net loss of about Rs 203 crore in the fiscal year before. The firm also said that its loan disbursals grew by 44% in the last financial year over FY22, at about Rs 4,000 crore. Its revenue, on the other hand, grew 34% to Rs 828 crore in FY23 from Rs 616 crore in the fiscal before.
Lendingkart, which had posted a profit for two consecutive years till FY20, incurred a net loss of Rs 28.4 crore in FY21, despite its lending arm making a profit of Rs 19 crore. The losses swelled to Rs 203 crore in FY22 due to conservative provisioning in light of the pandemic.
With the pandemic’s impact waning, Lendingkart saw a growing interest in its services and products from the MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector in India, the company said in a release.
Lendingkart was founded by Harshvardhan Lunia in 2014. The company provides capital access to MSMEs, and competes with other companies in the same space, such as Aye Finance, Clix Capital, NeoGrowth, and FlexiLoans.
It is backed by investors such as Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd, Bertelsmann, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, Sistema Asia, and India Quotient, among others. To date, it has raised Rs 1050 crore in equity capital.
It also runs fintech platforms—2gthr, Cred8, Xlr8 and Collec10—aimed at enhancing the lending capabilities of banks and other lenders. These platforms also help the group minimise the risks involved in lending. “Balance sheet business is a risky business. So, we are diversifying ourselves to a risk-free platform business," Lunia had told VCCircle in an earlier interaction.
The company claims to have disbursed around Rs 14,000 crore to MSMEs across over 4,000 cities and towns. Over 80% of the total loans were disbursed through 20+ co-lending partners, largely banks and NBFCs (non-banking financial companies). These disbursements were facilitated via its 2gthr platform.
