Techfino Bags INR 65 Cr To Offer Loans To MSMEs

Non-banking financing company (NBFC) Techfino has raised INR 65 Cr (around $7.5 Mn) from Stellaris Venture Partners and Saison Capital in an undisclosed funding round.

The Bengaluru-based NBFC will deploy the freshly raised capital to expand its branch network, strengthen tech stack and scale up operations.

Techfino’s cofounder Ratikant Satapathy said, “At Techfino, we leverage a robust technology platform which we have internally developed from scratch. This platform integrates multiple external APIs to obtain and verify data critical for underwriting. This technology has resulted in higher efficiency, better data-driven risk assessment and lower TAT.”

Founded in 2019 by Satapathy, Rajesh Panda and Jayaprakash Patra, Techfino is an NBFC which provides financial assistance to medium, small and micro enterprises by providing them loans against property. The company majorly focuses on Tier II and Tier III cities. Besides, Techfino also provides education loans by collaborating with educational institutions.

It currently operates in Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh, via its branch model.

The company claims to have disbursed more than 1 Lakh loans till date and crossed INR 200 crore in Assets Under Management (AUM).

NBFCs Investor Pull

The fundraise comes on the back of Indian NBFCs getting a lot of traction from investors lately.

Last week, NBFC Flexiloans secured a funding of INR 375 Cr as a part of its ongoing Series C funding round. The round, which was a mix of primary and secondary deals, was led by the NBFC’s existing investor Nuveen, with participation from Fundamentum, Accion Digital Transformation and Maj Invest.

Earlier this year, Bengaluru-based Bizloan also secured 35 Cr ($4.22 Mn) in a Series A funding round to provide credit solutions to MSMEs.

Besides, several giants are also entering the fintech space by rolling out their NBFC arms and infusing capital. For instance, fintech major Jio Financial Services (JFS) recently  infused INR 1,000.24 Cr (about $117 Mn) in its NBFC arm Jio Finance Limited (JFL) to further expand its offerings. 

A month later, listed fintech giant MobiKwik announced the incorporation of a wholly-owned non-banking financial company (NBFC), Mobikwik Financial Services Private Limited (MFSPL). 

Earlier this month, ecommerce major Flipkart also received approval to act as NBFC to offer direct loans to its consumers on its platform.

Tiger Global-backed used-car marketplace unicorn Spinny raised $131 Mn in a round led by US-based Accel Leaders Fund to expand its NBFC arm.

Besides, platforms like Vayana and Kuhoo also received NBFC licence from the central bank.