Investment vehicles for Bertelsmann and Sistema have co-led a Rs 863m ($11.3m) extension to India-based online lender Lendingkart Technologies’ series D round, which now stands at $41.3m, LiveMint has reported.
The extension was co-led by investment firm India Quotient and Fullerton Financial, an asset manager operated by the Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek. Media group Bertelsmann and conglomerate Sistema were represented by Bertelsmann India Investments and Sistema Asia Fund respectively.
The company secured the initial $30m from Bertelsmann India Investments, India Quotient and Fullerton Financial in August 2019.
Lendingkart provides short-term business loans, using big data analytics and machine learning to assess creditworthiness. The loans are financed by the company’s lending affiliates.
The series D capital has been allocated to further developing Lendingkart’s technology and analytics capabilities in addition to expanding its lending base in order to support more clients. Micro and small businesses have been particularly affected by the current economic uncertainties.
The company closed an $87m series C round in early 2018 led by Fullerton Financial with contributions from Bertelsmann Asia Investments, Sistema Asia Fund, India Quotient, Mayfield India, Saama Capital and Darrin Capital Management.
Lendingkart had received $32m in a series B round in 2016 that included $20m in equity funding supplied by Bertelsmann India Investments, India Quotient, Darrin Capital, Mayfield India and Saama Capital.
The latter two had previously joined Ashvin Chadha and Shailesh Mehta for a $10m round the previous year that followed on from an undisclosed amount of seed capital from India Quotient and Ashish Goenka.
