12 September 2018, India:
Fintech startup Kissht has raised $30 million in Series C round of funding. The funding round was led by Vertex Ventures (SEA and India) and Sistema Asia Fund. Existing investors, Fosun RZ Capital, Ventureast and Endiya Partners also participated in the funding round.
The startup will use the fresh capital to increase its base of both offline and online merchants, deepen its presence across categories, and further enhance its data and analytics capabilities as it seeks to cement its leadership position in the highly underpenetrated Indian consumer credit market.
“Taking a loan remains a deeply undemocratic experience in India. Customers not only want a loan, but they want it in a jiffy. Unlike traditional players, on the back of risk algorithms, we have been neither timid nor tentative in leveraging data. We have just scratched the surface in purchase financing. We aspire to create the indelible experience of dignified lending, which will drive customer loyalty,” said Ranvir Singh, Co-Founder of Kissht.
“At Kissht, we are continuously striving for innovative affordability solutions that do justice to the growing and aspirational middle-class of India. Our data-centric algorithms and technology platform allows us to underwrite the new to credit and excluded segments extensively while ensuring we are risk prudent. We will use the funding to further accelerate growth,” said Krishnan Vishwanathan, CEO and Co-Founder of Kissht.
“We see brand new markets opening up in consumer financing in India, and believe that technology will play a fundamental role in addressing this opportunity. However, we feel that it is equally important for lenders to stick to well understood fundamentals of financials services, such as a strong focus on managing collections, etc. We see a unique blend of these in Kissht, and look forward to working with Ranvir and Krishnan as they continue to envision and build Kissht into a financial services powerhouse,” said Piyush Kharbanda, Executive Director at Vertex Ventures.
“India is a credit starved country with a ~$140BN annual credit gap that Kissht is addressing through its proprietary technology and innovative financial products. We are excited to partner with Krishnan and Ranvir in their journey,” said Dhruv Kapoor, Managing Director at Sistema Asia Capital.
Kissht was founded by Krishnan Vishwanathan and Ranvir Singh in 2015. It provides purchase financing and personal loans to its customers through a financial technology platform which is integrated with online and offline merchants. Kissht has developed proprietary self-learning algorithm which assesses customer’s credit profile in a fraction of a second based on 2,000+ digital footprints. Kissht acts as a point of sale affordability platform for India’s growing middle class, and aligns well with the aspirations of all the ecommerce platforms looking to expand the buyer base.
Currently Kissht is present in 50+ Online and 3,500+ Offline points of sale across categories including consumer durables, electronics, health, alternative energy & education, enabling customers to easily access credit for their purchases.
(Image – Owler)
