Fintech Platforms that SMEs need to look out for

Maintaining funds has always been one of the biggest challenges faced by the SMEs. This challenge becomes a harder nut to crack during festival and peak sale days. All the inventory, stock, capital amount, requirements must be evaluated. Sometimes, the cash flow will be turbid leading to severe losses if the orders are held up due to improper planning. The COVID-19 pandemic has added fuel to the financial woes of the SMEs as the order, supply and demand cycle has been drastically changed.

Here are a few fintech platforms that are lending helping hands to a lot of SMEs during tough times.

• LendingKart

LendingKart is a digital lending platform based out of Ahmedabad. It has a lot of analytical tools that analyze various data sets and evaluate the borrowers in various aspects to ensure and evaluate their creditworthiness. Based on the creditworthiness, LendingKart aims to provide credits to SMEs and help them in upliftment. Lendingkart has raised a total of $242.5M in funding over eleven rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 19, 2020 from a Series D round.

• Capital Float

Capital Float is one of the leading digital lending platforms in India with experience in MSME financing. Availing credit has not been a piece of a cake for many Indian borrowers. Capital Float, the Indian start-up especially focuses on SMEs and helps them ramp up. Capital Float works with ecommerce sellers, small-scale traders and B2B businesses to provide flexible, short-term loans. It has raised a total funding of $143.6M over 10 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jan 14, 2020 from a Venture – Series Unknown round.

• Indifi Technologies

Indifi is a leading non-banking lending financial company. It is a tech-driven lending platform similar to LendingKart, that analyzes data of SMEs from a variety of sources, and assesses their performance and creditworthiness of these businesses in the industry they belong to. Upon approval, it takes the qualified applications to multiple lenders. In this way, Indifi facilitates those businesses that require funding. Indifi aims at  providing a simple and instantaneous experience. The platform has successfully issued over 20,000+ loans to businesses across 200+ cities in 12+ industries by making use of its extensive network of 20+ lenders. The company has raised a total of $31M in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jul 26, 2019 from a Series C round.

• NeoGrowth

NeoGrowth lends finance to small businesses to achieve intended business growth. It has raised a total of $107.8M in funding over 5 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Sep 13, 2019 from a Debt Financing round. NeoGrowth leverages technology innovations and digital payment ecosystems to provide a smooth funding experience. NeoGrowth offers retail and supply-chain finance to several industries. During the last seven years, NeoGrowth has provided business loans to a number of apparel industry merchants across pan-India. The key features of NeoGrowth business loans include no collateral requirement, customised repayment solution, doorstep service and easy top-ups.

• SMEcorner

SMEcorner is a modern FinTech lender. As the company name goes, it helps SMEs meet their working capital needs with collateral-free business loans in 24 hours. SMEcorner is taking down the challenges of MSME lending in India by leveraging tech, data science and analytics to solve the complex SME problem. The company uses its own kind of online platform that combines machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence to provide a seamless and fast customer experience.

SMECorner has raised a total of $49.8M in funding over 6 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Mar 1, 2020 from a Series B round. It has a balance sheet support of 10 billion from a variety of partners such as IDFC First Bank, Fullerton India, Ambit, DMI Finance and Northern ARC. The lenders such as HDFC Bank, AU Small Finance, SIDBI, InCred and U GRO Capital also support SMEcorner. The company is backed by Quona Capital, ACCION, Paragon Partners and Triple Jump. The company has witnessed a 7 percent month-on-month growth, since September 2018.