Rs 67 crore debt funds go into this Lendingkart

BENGALURU: Digital lending company Lendingkart has raised debt funding of $10 million (Rs 67 crore) from Kotak Mahindra Bank, Aditya Birla Financial Services, Tata Capital and a few other financial institutions. The debt was raised by Lendingkart Finance, an NBFC subsidiary of the company.

This brings the company's total debt funding raised till date to $40 million. Lendingkart has raised $26 million in equity funding from investors including Bertelsmann India Investment, Saama Capital, Mayfield Fund and India Quotient among others.

"We will continue to raise debt funding to build our book and lend to more businesses," CEO Harshvardhan Lunia said.

Lendingkart offers loans of an Rs 4-5 lakhs to average ticket size of small and medium businesses.

The company has been approaching banks to raise debt funding, considering they lend at a lower rate than NBFCs. "NBFCs lend at about 12-13% while banks lend at around 10-11%, which is one of the critical points. However, we will maintain a balance between banks and NBFCs, since NBFCs understand our business better."

With this, the firm looks to reach 20,000 businesses by the end of the financial year from the current 9,500 SMEs reached till date. It also plans to increase its loan disbursal to Rs 1,600 crore from current Rs 600 crore disbursed so far.