Alteria Capital, a Mumbai-based venture debt fund has drawn a Rs 80 crore cheque for the digital lending firm Lendingkart, the sole major cheque written by the venture debt firm till date. The deal, which is also perhaps the principal cheque written by a venture debt company for a home-grown start-up, will see Lendingkart, which also amounts the likes of Temasek-backed Fullerton Financial Holdings, India Quotient and Sistema Asia Fund as its sponsors, will make use of the profits to further raise its business among the micro, small and medium initiatives, which it furnishes too.
Harshvardhan Lunia, CEO of Lendingkart, mentioned that “MSMEs have traditionally confronted huge hurdles in rising their businesses. Our core aim at Lendingkart is to assist them to flourish by satisfying their monetary requirements,”
The growth is always expected at a time when risk capital investors are turning progressively careful about supporting digital lending start-ups, subsequent to the twin blow from a liquidity crisis at Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) and after Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) missed reimbursements to their bondholders.
The whole quantum of equity funding in the fintech lending sector stood at approximately $394 million in the year of 2018-19, around 5% drop from $413 million in the earlier year, according to information from business intelligence agency Tracxn. Further, the number of companies that elevated funds stood at 60 against 73 in the prior year. The amount of equity funding rounds fell to 76 in 2018-19 from 91 in the year before, as per Tracxn.
Vinod Murali, the managing partner at Alteria Capital, said that “The past few quarters have seen a large number of instabilities in the NBFC space but the corporations which have vigorous underwriting platforms and a sturdy equity cushion have been successful in turning this into an occasion for development,”. He also mentioned that “While liquidity has not been effortlessly accessible for the larger market, Lendingkart has fully-fledged developed sharply during this point. The squad at Lendingkart has made a solid groundwork and we are enthusiastic to function with them at this occasion,”.
The Lendingkart contract is the second one broadcasted by Alteria this month. It had also built a Rs 25 crore venture debt round in dock less scooter sharing platform Vogo before this transaction.
The Mumbai-based company built by Murali and Ajay Hattangdi, who formerly led Temasek-backed InnoVen Capital’s India operations, has developed as one of the nation’s major providers of venture debt to the nation’s start-up network. Alteria accomplishes a Rs 800 crore amount, with a greenshoe choice of Rs 200 crore. It offers venture debt in the variety of Rs 5 crore to Rs 100 crore to principally venture-backed companies and counts the likes of Dunzo, Faasos, Toppr and RAW Pressery in its collection.
the previous year, Lendingkart Finance, the sister company of Lendingkart Technologies, had successfully built 300 crores in non-convertible debentures. Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC has pervaded Rs 150 crore while the rest came from another mutual fund’s entity, whose name was not revealed.
