Online peer-to-peer lending platform LoanMeet, which is run by Strivers Solutions Pvt. Ltd, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a clutch of investors.
Chinese entrepreneur-turned-investors Cao Yibin and Huang Wei, along with KrazyBee.com co-founder and CEO Madhusudan E, participated in this round. "The capital will be used for expanding the company’s customer base," the company said in a statement.
LoanMeet provides short-term working capital loans to retailers for inventory financing. The company claims to be growing at 50% month-on-month. “LoanMeet is disrupting the multi-billion dollar supply chain finance in offline retail. It is leveraging technology to fundamentally transform inventory financing for retailers,†said Yibin.
Bangalore-based Loanmeet was found by Sunil Kumar and Ritesh Singh in 2016. Before starting up, Kumar used to run a consulting firm, while Singh had founded an app-based service to make commuting easier.
“Most retailers are unable to get loans from financial institutions due to lack of credit history, or insufficient documentation to process loan applications. Our focus is to use data to build credit models, enabling us to make quick credit decisions. We are a focused fintech platform, and we see tremendous opportunities in the offline inventory financing business,†said Kumar.
The immense opportunities in the lending space for small businesses in India has seen increasing investor interest and has resulted in several digital lending startups raising funds in recent times.
Last month, Delhi-based Simplified Fintech Pvt. Ltd, which operates a yet-to-be-launched online lending platform, SimpliLend, had bagged an undisclosed amount in angel funding from two high-net-worth individuals based out of Singapore and India.
Bangalore-based EzCred Pvt. Ltd, which operates a consumer lending platform, had raised Rs 6.5 crore ($1 million) in a seed round from a group of investors.
Paysense Services India Pvt. Ltd, which offers personal loans, had also raised $5.3 million in Series A funding led by Singapore-based venture capital firm Jungle Ventures.
A VCCircle analysis shows that since the beginning of the year, at least 25 fintech startups have raised venture funding. While the inflows have been well-distributed across the broader fintech space, digital wallet firm Paytm may have got the biggest slice of the funding pie, raising a whopping $1.4 billion from SoftBank. Online lending and payment gateway startups are also hot in terms of investor interest.