Reliance Corporate Advisory Services is the investment arm of Reliance Capital. The company had announced yesterday (03/07/2017) that it has made an investment of Rs. 7 crores in Series A round of funding in the digital lending startup, Billionloans Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. This is the Company’s second major startup investment, after the investment in Paytm. Read more on Investments
Billionloans is chaired by former Infosys CFO, V Balakrishnan. The startup provides flexible loans at low-interest rates to individuals and SMEs in India. Customers can avail small ticket loans (upto Rs. 2 crores) via Billionloans’s mobile app. The main goal of the startup is to provide loans to individuals or SMEs that have found it difficult to obtain loans from traditional sources like banks etcetera. Billionloans was founded by the serial entrepreneur, Rangan Varadan, who has also co-founded MicroGraam, an online micro-lending platform. This investment in Billionloans is a part of Reliance Capital’s plan to strengthen its presence in consumer lending business.
“Technology and innovation in financial services are going to play a big part in bridging the gap between aspirations of a large number of Indians wanting access to credit on one hand and the ability of companies to build efficient and scalable lending models on the other”, Reliance Capital Executive Director, Anmol Ambani said.
Billionloans plans to give affordable education loans, housing loans and personal loans to individuals and affordable business loans to SMEs in India. The startup is expected to raise more than Rs. 2000 crores investments across multiple lenders and VC firms over the next three years (by 2020). This investment deal was organized and supervised by Reliance Wealth Management, the wealth management arm of Reliance Capital.
“Our goal is to fundamentally disrupt how borrowers are sourced and appraised using technology in the quickest possible manner. This will lead to a dramatic change in access, both for borrowers with thin credit histories and for lenders looking to expand beyond their traditional customer bases”, Billionloans Chairman, Balakrishnan said.
India is a land of youthful talent. Many talented youths in India have started a business of their own which provides essential services or products. Unfortunately, for many SMEs in India, getting funds from banks or VC firms has been a problem due to increased speculation among VC firms, angel investors and banks. Sometimes, startups have to wait a long time or have to go through a lot of formalities before getting loans from banks. However, it is heartening to see that a number of digital lending startups have been launched and funded over the past few years to help the SMEs in India expand their business. Among the digital lending startups that got funded recently are Capital Float which raised a fund of Rs. 15 crores from Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services in Series B round of funding during April this year. The fintech startup ZestMoney secured an investment of US $6.5 million in Series A round of funding led by the VC Firm, PayU India and supported by its US – based existing investors, Ribbit Capital and Omidyar Network. The fintech startup Cointribe secured an investment of Rs. 12 crores in Series A round of funding from IAN and PayU India during June this year (2017) just to name a few. Read more on Startup News
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