Indifi Technologies, a homegrown fintech startup, is on a mission to help small businesses grow with seamless, timely and customised access to credit. Its a digital lending platform that offers loans to underserved, yet credit-worthy businesses. This is made possible by keeping technology at the core of its business. By harnessing the power of AI, analytics, and machine learning, Indifi circumvents challenges that traditional lenders face.
“In the beginning, we focused on getting our foundation and key offerings right, only then did we look to scale,” says Alok Mittal, co-founder & CEO, Indifi Technologies. “So far, we have been able to disburse 63,000+ loans to 30,000+ MSMEs in 450+ cities. Our disbursals continue to grow m-o-m and we have crossed Rs 1,400 crore AUM. Out of all the loans disbursed, 30% have been to businesses that are new-to-credit, and 20% were disbursed to women entrepreneurs. So far, we have onboarded around 80+ ecosystem partners and 20+ lending partners, this helps us further our mission of financial inclusion through timely, affordable and accessible credit,” reveals Mittal.
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The MSME sector with its large market size has been and will continue to be integral to the growth story of India. According to Mittal, the overall credit gap in the MSME sector here is Rs 25 trillion. Traditional lenders have a fixed set of requirements that an MSME must meet for them to be eligible for credit, this is judged by years of operations, ITRs, credit history etc.
Indifi was established in 2015 when it became clear that these key problems can be solved with the use of technology and the digital revolution and enable credit for the underserved MSMEs. “Our mission has been unwavering since the inception of Indifi, we will continue working towards driving inclusion of underserved MSMEs. This will be done by doubling down on our technology processes and strengthening our core offering to ensure seamless digital customer journey, underwriting at a business level, and faster disbursals ,” says Mittal.
On the company’s financials, Mittal points out, “We have done four rounds of institutional funding from Accel
EVERYTHING IS DIGITAL
Technology has been at the front and centre of Indifi’s operations. “It is through this that we seek to drive credit inclusion, we do not have a feet-on-street model,” says Mittal. “The credit journey of our customers is entirely digital, from the time that they make the decision to apply for a business loan to when the amount reaches their account. This means they can do the entire exercise from the comfort of their homes/ offices without stepping out.”
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Indifi has long standing partnerships with leading digital ecosystems across segments (E-commerce, retail, food, travel, payments etc) and subsequently deep integrations in its system that allow the company to acquire alternate data sets. “These data sets are what allow us to serve underserved MSMEs, as they give us information that will allow us to assess the risk and creditworthiness of a business. Our underwriting is also done through machine learning capabilities and a proprietary underwriting algorithm that is based on 5000+ data points. Moreover, we adopt the latest technology integrations like Account Aggregator, E-KYC and ENACH
to make customer journeys as seamless as possible,” Mittal reveals.