Mumbai-based Paysense Services India Pvt. Ltd, which offers personal loans, has raised $5.3 million (Rs 34 crore) in Series A funding led by Singapore-based venture capital firm Jungle Ventures, a company statement said.
South African business conglomerate Naspers and existing investor Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the round, the press note added. Paysense had in 2015 raised $2.3 million from Nexus Venture Partners and other angel investors.
“We have patiently been looking at this space in India. There are going to be a few mega companies being formed in this space,†said Amit Anand, founder of Jungle Ventures.
Paysense was founded in 2015 by Ranganathan and Sayali Karanjkar. The company operates a mobile app, through which users can finance online and offline purchases through equated monthly instalments. After filling out an online application form, users can select the required EMI plan and upload the KYC documents. Users can apply for personal loans of up to Rs 1 lakh.
The company has tied up with Mumbai-based IIFL (India Infoline)—its sole lending partner—and has disbursed loans worth Rs 30 crore till date to about 1.8 lakh customers. According to Ranganathan, millennials comprise the majority of the firm’s users.
“Most of this Rs 30 crore was disbursed just in the last five months and we expect the user base to double going forward,†he said.
The two-year-old startup plans to offer personalised and customised loan offerings to its users and is in preliminary talks with potential lending partners, however, Ranganathan did not reveal further details.
Ranganathan is a Stanford University alumnus and was earlier part of Paypal, handling its Southeast Asian operations. Co-founder and chief operating officer Sayali is a business administration alumnus from the Kellogg School of Management and had previously founded Outsy, a local discovery platform for content in entertainment and lifestyle.
Recent deals in the fintech space include Ahmedabad-based Lendingkart, which last month raised $4.6 million from Anicut Capital LLP. In the same month, Bangalore-based lending firm Capital Float raised $2.3 million (Rs 15 crore) from Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd’s non-banking finance company.
In March, Mumbai-based SME and consumer lending platform InCred Finance raised Rs 25 crore from private equity firm Paragon Partners.
