InCred Closes $60 Mn Series D Round, Becomes Second Unicorn Of 2023

Fintech startup InCred on Monday (December 25) said its lending arm turned unicorn after raising a $60 Mn (INR 500 Cr) Series D funding round led by Manipal Education and Medical Group’s Ranjan Pai. 

While Pai invested $9 Mn in InCred Finance, RP Group’s Ravi Pillai and Deutsche Bank senior executive Ram Nayak pumped in $5.4 Mn and $1.2 Mn respectively. 

The round also saw participation from multiple ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNIs) and family offices, as well as institutional investors such as Varanium Capital Advisors and Sattva Group.

A company spokesperson told Inc42 that the UHNIs and family offices invested in InCred’s lending subsidiary via InCred Wealth, the wealth management vertical. However, the spokesperson declined to name these individuals.

InCred was valued at $1.04 Bn in the funding round, making it only the second Indian startup to enter the coveted unicorn club in 2023, after Zepto. 

The capital will be deployed to shore up the startup’s three core business verticals – consumer loans, student loans, and MSME lending. The funds will also be utilised to strengthen its balance sheet, shore up liquidity and expand footprint. 

“This funding marks a significant milestone in our journey and takes us into the ranks of unicorns… This equity capital will help us take advantage of these opportunities, strengthen our balance sheet and provide us (with) enough runway for the next couple of years of expansion…,” said InCred founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Bhupinder Singh.

This comes more than a month after the fintech startup, in November, said that it had secured commitments worth INR 500 Cr as part of its Series D funding round. 

Founded in 2016 by Singh, InCred Group operates in the BFSI sector through three separate entities – lending vertical InCred Finance, wealth and asset management company InCred Capital, and InCred Money that deals in retail bonds and alternative investments. 

The startup claims that its lending arm has seen strong growth across all three core verticals. It claims that while its student loan business has surged on the back of growing student visas, consumer lending business has been witnessing healthy demand driven by overall economic growth. 

Overall, InCred Finance claims to have a loan book of more than INR 7,500 Cr and has been clocking a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 50% in the last three years. 

As per the startup, it recorded a profit before tax (PBT) of INR 42 Cr in fiscal year 2021-22 (FY22) which further jumped to INR 203 Cr in FY23. In the first half (H1) of FY24, InCred Finance clocked a PBT of INR 168 Cr. 

The hefty round comes at a time when funding numbers have nosedived for the entire Indian startup ecosystem. As per Inc42 data, homegrown new-age tech startups secured a mere $8.3 Bn funding in the first 10 months of 2023, falling to 2020-levels when it raised $8.7 Bn during the same period. 

The development comes close on the heels of fintech startup slice bagging $9 Mn funding last month. In November itself, ex-Flipkart executive Anil Goteti’s travel fintech startup Scapia also secured $23 Mn as a part of its Series A round co-led by Elevation Capital and Binny Bansal’s 3STATE Ventures.

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