Kiranawalas, our favorite neighborhood shops that come as a savior for our daily needs, last-minute hacks and an important part of the societies are often remained neglected. These small shops have been an image where time stands still without any aspiration just maintaining the same level of business year on year, sometimes decades. These shops are often unaware of insurance needs, at the mercy of extra cash for occasional maintenance work or upgrading. The store owners had a hard time borrowing cash for renovation, working capital, etc. and always under the pressure of repaying dealers, banks, seldom took them seriously. However, the story sees a positive twist with Fintech players approaching them for addressing financing gaps.
When banks were wary of providing small-ticket loans to these Kiranawallas due to low credit score, Fintech startups took to various methods to appraise their credit worthiness through their sales data, swipe card history, etc. The working capital loan provided a lifeline to the Kiranas which are at constant war with e-shopping and big malls. They are not only revamping their store offerings, lenders are also providing them the assistance of various methods and lessons to address their cash flow issues. These funds are further utilized for their business and help them grow. Here are the 5 Indian startups helping Kiranawalas flourish:
FlexiLoans: FlexiLoans, a Fintech startup, is offering a platform to Kiranawalas to borrow funds for their businesses. Founded by Manish Lunia, Abhishek Kothari, Ritesh Jain and Deepak Jain, the online lending platform provide various types of loans, namely, working capital loans, lines of credit and supply chain finance. Founders realized that Kirana Market is untapped and took it as an opportunity to build their company concept. They also have tied-up with card swipe machine providers such as Mswipe and PineLabs for better outreach to the small retailers.
Capital Float: Capital Float, NBFC licensed startup, fulfills the finance needs of Kiranawallas. It lends specialized credit and financial loans to the Kirana store sellers and helps solve their working capital worries. These are unsecured business loans that can avail within 3 days at competitive interest rates. Founded in 2013, this Fintech lender claims to have over 4, 70, 313 customers including e-sellers, restaurants and wholesalers, among others. They also partnered with StoreKing, a rural retail commerce provider to extend credit to rural India.
BharatPe – BharatPe is another Fintech company whose objective is to ease the problem of the working capital of Kiranawallas. It provides small value, short-duration loans to merchants at low-interest rates. The loan amount ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh, charges an interest rate of 1.67% per month. BharatPe has also been selected by Mastercard for its Start Path program which will provide them an opportunity to utilize its technology with Mastercard’s network of customers and experts.
LendingKart: Founded in 2016, LendingKart helps Kirana dealers with their working capital. The loan provided by this Fintech startup is collateral-free and quick. The company has tapped 462 cities and disbursed approximately 6500 loans to SMEs. They are heading with their next target of loan disbursal of Rs. 1600 crores.
NeoGrowth: NeoGrowth offers short-term and hassle-free loans to small businesses. They aim to solve the issue of the retail segment of a lack of funding sources with their product ‘NeoCash’. Founded by Dhruv Khaitan and Piyush Khaitan, the platform enables customers small daily auto repayment facility from card-based sales. NeoGrowth and PaisaBazaar have collaborated to provide POS-based or swipe-machine based loans to small retailers
