Sunday, July 3, 2022
Techiexpert.com
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • Register
Exclusive Videos
  • Tech news
  • Startup news
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • IOT
  • Big Data
  • Cloud
  • Data Analytics
  • Machine Learning
  • Blockchain
  • Social Media
  • Tech news
  • Startup news
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • IOT
  • Big Data
  • Cloud
  • Data Analytics
  • Machine Learning
  • Blockchain
  • Social Media
No Result
View All Result
TechiExpert
No Result
View All Result

Emerging India SmartCoin raises over $7 million Series A

Srikanth by Srikanth
March 17, 2020
in Tech news
Reading Time: 5 mins read
SmartCoin
11
SHARES
139
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

App based consumer lending startup SmartCoin has raised over $7 million in Series A funding from LGT LightstoneAspada and existing investors Unicorn India Ventures and Accion Venture Lab.

SmartCoin lends to a large underserved market hitherto not served by banks, NBFCs, or microfinance institutions. The company’s product offering includes small ticket personal loans to micro merchants, self-employed and salaried individuals, who mainly borrow to fund their economic advancement. Use cases include working capital for micro-merchants, fuel and vehicle repair funding for delivery executives; vocational training for micro-entrepreneurs and emergency medical needs of blue/grey collar workers.

Rohit Garg, Co-founder CEO, SmartCoin, said, “Our goal has been to provide access to credit to those underserved by the formal banking system. Our proprietary AI/ML powered risk-assessment engine enables loan-approval within minutes and provides credit through a hassle-free, completely automated process. Deeper insights into the customer’s financial and behavioral data, combined with a gamified ladder, enables unlocking better products over time. Our choice to build for the credit-starved mass market and strong portfolio performance has helped SmartCoin stand out in a crowded fin-tech market. We are delighted to have LGT LightstoneAspada come on-board alongside our other investors given their experience in financial services and focus on impact.”

SmartCoin began operations in 2017 and has since then, scaled rapidly serving customers across all the states and over 95% districts of India. The company has offered loans amounting to over 400 crores to half a million customers, with a pan-India user base of over five million. They have also received an NBFC license in October 2019.

With a differentiated and scalable business model built on a suite of AI/ML engines that are trained over terabytes of data, SmartCoin has been recognized internationally among the Top-50 startups driving financial inclusion around the globe by the likes of Visa, IFC and Metlife. The company was also the only fintech startup in 2019 to successfully graduate from both Google’s Launchpad Accelerator program and its App Excellence program for its advanced data- driven, mobile- first approach.

Kartik Srivatsa, Managing Partner, LGT LightstoneAspada, commented, “We are excited to back, in SmartCoin, one of the strongest teams in machine learning and AI in financial services. The company has already built the foundations of what could be one of the important fintech platforms in India that delivers personalized financing products at an affordable cost to underserved households towards their goal to building positive financial net worth. SmartCoin’s business model has the ability to provide data-driven insights in a customer segment that is otherwise opaque and can unlock means of formal credit and financial services. We believe that their AI/ML engine can over a period of time also deliver personalized digital services in areas such as education and healthcare for this segment.”

SmartCoin plans to use the current round of funding to primarily grow their loan book. SmartCoin also plans to expand its data science team, advancing their AI/ML-based underwriting platform, launching new products and growing its user base to 10M.

Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “We identified Smartcoin quite early in their journey and decided to invest in the company. We were quite impressed with the market segment that Smartcoin wanted to address as most other fintechs at the time were chasing white collars that still have credit history in terms of digital spending. But Rohit and his team decided to penetrate perhaps the most difficult customer segment. Their thesis that people are willing to payback if given hassle free loans and their ability to keep their NPAs lowest in their industry has prompted us to continue to invest in the Company.”

Vikas Raj, Managing Director, Accion Venture Lab, added, “SmartCoin’s data-driven and responsible approach to digital lending enables them to effectively reach underserved populations that lack access to credit. We’ve had great confidence in their team and strategy since making our initial investment and look forward to continuing our partnership.”

Unitus Capital acted as an exclusive financial advisor to the transaction.

About SmartCoin

SmartCoin is an app based consumer lending startup focused on providing small-loans to the vast underserved lower- and middle-income segments comprising 45% of population (~500M individuals)- micro merchants, micro entrepreneurs, and blue/grey workers. Banks and NBFCs find it difficult to serve them due to lack of credit histories and expensive operating models resulting from their offline manual processes and legacy technology systems. Our data driven mobile-first approach with proprietary AI/ML underwriting algorithms are capable of assessing the risk profile of a prospective borrower in real time and delivering the loan through a completely digital manner. We have re-engineered the complete loan cycle to make it entirely automated, fast, convenient and personalized for the customer. SmartCoin’s advanced AI/ML has been recognized by Google and is the only fintech startup in 2019 to have been part of both its Launchpad Accelerator program and the App Excellence program.

LGT LightstoneAspada

Formed in partnership with Aspada and LGT in August 2019, LGT LightstoneAspada is the India focused impact investment platform of LGT Lightstone. LGT Lightstone is LGT Group’s impact investing initiative to build a global multi-billion dollar direct investing platform focused on scalable businesses that provide access to improved livelihoods, information and services for underserved consumers around the world and/or promote sustainable resource utilization.

Accion Venture Lab

Accion’s seed-stage investment initiative Accion Venture Lab provides capital and extensive support to innovative fintech startups that improve the reach, quality, and affordability of financial services for the underserved and have the potential to scale. Backed by commercial and impact investors since the launch of its third-party fund in 2019, Venture Lab has invested in more than 40 early-stage startups that operate in 30 countries worldwide. Venture Lab is a part of Accion, a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world, with a pioneering legacy in microfinance and fintech impact investing. Accion catalyzes financial service providers to deliver high-quality, affordable solutions at scale for the three billion people who are left out of – or poorly served by – the financial sector. For more than 50 years, Accion has helped tens of millions of people through our work with more than 110 partners in 50 countries. For further information, visit https://www.accion.org/venturelab. 

Unicorn India Ventures 

Unicorn India Ventures is a Mumbai-based fund house started in 2015 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The Fund House has also launched a UK India cross border fund for funding UK startups looking to enter India and have invested in 6 UK startups so far. From its first fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like VLCC VanityCube, Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, GrabonRent, Inntot, Genrobotic, SectorQube, Perfit, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin, Open Bank, Boxx.ai, Clootrack and Openapp.

Tags: Fintech startupsMumbai startupsSmartCoin
Share4Tweet3Share1Pin2

Related Posts

Telemedicine Business
Tech news

Telemedicine or e-medicine: What is it?

Ways Data Analysis has changed customer reward programs
Tech news

Ways Data Analysis has changed customer reward programs

Digital Learning face recognition
Tech news

Here’s why Deep Learning might not be enough for celebrity face recognition

VPS Helps Forex Trading
Tech news

Staying Safe When Trading on a Trading App

Mozilla launches Thinderbird for android
Tech news

Mozilla launches Thinderbird for android

Most Read

  • How to Track Someone’s iPhone by Phone Number?

    How to Track Someone’s iPhone by Phone Number?

    490 shares
    Share 196 Tweet 123
  • Top 5 car automation trends to know

    265 shares
    Share 106 Tweet 66
  • Is Parody Coin investment a Good Investment?

    98 shares
    Share 39 Tweet 25
  • What is windows modules installer ? How to Enable/Disable

    1245 shares
    Share 498 Tweet 311
  • Tips to Reduce Your Website Hosting Costs

    882 shares
    Share 352 Tweet 220
  • How to Track Activities an Instagram account?

    87 shares
    Share 35 Tweet 22

Recent Stories

Doing Cleanup: 5 Types of Links You Should Disavow

Backlinks
Share4Tweet3Share1Pin1

Hyperlocal marketplace Urvann raises Rs. 3 Cr in Seed Round led by IPV

Hyperlocal marketplace Urvann raises Rs. 3 Cr in Seed Round led by IPV
Share5Tweet3Share1Pin2

Does domain extensions impact SEO standards

Does domain extension impact SEO standards
Share5Tweet3Share1Pin2

How Enterprise Blockchain can enable Privacy Preservation

How Enterprise Blockchain can enable Privacy Preservation
Share5Tweet3Share1Pin1
  • Terms of use
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Write For Us
  • Cookie Policy

© 2022 All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Tech news
  • Startup news
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • IOT
  • Big Data
  • Cloud
  • Data Analytics
  • Machine Learning
  • Blockchain
  • Social Media

© 2022 All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Cookie Law Notice
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT