Capital Float, Indian online lending platform, today announced that it has raised $25 million (Rs. 170 crore) in Series B financing. The round was led by Creation Investments Capital Management, LLC, with significant participation from existing investors SAIF Partners, Sequoia India, and Aspada. This is the company’s third round of funding, bringing the total equity capital raised thus far to $42 million.
Capital Float offers timely, convenient and flexible loans to SMEs across the country via its unique digital platform. In just over two years, the platform has originated Rs. 400 crore in loans to small businesses across 40+ cities, with 20x growth in the last year. The company has pioneered a series of innovative partnerships to deliver credit to entrepreneurial ecosystems that have been traditionally underserved by banks – with leading aggregators such as Snapdeal and PayTM in B2C e-commerce, Alibaba in B2B e-commerce, Uber in transportation, Pine Labs and mSwipe in payments, Via.com in travel, and others.
This round of growth capital will help Capital Float expand its lending footprint to over 20,000 SMEs in 100+ cities, and continue to introduce new, transformational financial products online. It will also enable the company to widen capital sources on the platform: in addition to lending from its own balance sheet, Capital Float operates a lending marketplace with multiple large banks and NBFCs actively participating.
“At Capital Float, we are striving to create an entirely new paradigm for delivering financial products to SMEs,” said co-founders Gaurav Hinduja & Sashank Rishyasringa in a joint statement. “Today, a customer can apply from anywhere through the web or smartphone, and have their creditworthiness analyzed within minutes using sophisticated algorithms that draw on financial and alternative data. In many cases, we are able to approve and disburse a loan in less than an hour. This unique blend of tech and data is enabling us to scale rapidly while minimizing defaults and significantly lowering the cost of delivery for micro loans.”
Since 2011, Creation Investments has made investments in six companies in India including Sohanlal Commodity Management, Equitas Holdings, Eko Financial Services, Grameen Koota, Sonata Finance and now Capital Float. Globally, Creation Investments’ portfolio companies directly serve over 9 million entrepreneurs with over $4.5 billion in loans outstanding.
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