There are 29.8 million enterprises in SME space. There is a total finance requirement of INR 32.5 trillion ($650 billion) in the MSME sector, which comprises of INR 26 trillion ($ 520 Billion) of debt demand and INR 6.5 trillion ($130 Billion) of equity demand.
Indifi is a Gurgaon based platform for enabling debt-financing for small businesses founded in May 2015 by Alok Mittal, Siddharth Mahanot, Sundeep Sahi.
The company aims to substantially improve the experience that borrowers get in terms of speed of approval and disbursement, convenience of the loan process, relevance of the loan product to their business needs, and finding the best rates in the market.
Driven by the idea of establishing or automating SMB financing in India, Indifi has emerged as an enabler for start-ups and small businesses to seek seamless access to funding.
Indifi is live in 6 different segments viz. retail, travel, transportation, hotels, e-commerce and manufacturing.
About Founders
Mr. Alok Mittal – CEO
Experience: 20 years in entrepreneurship and venture capital
Mr. Siddharth Mahanot – COO
Experience: 15 years in risk and credit underwriting for small businesses
Mr. Sundeep Sahi – CTO
Experience: 16 years in technology and product development
Chitrakshi Suneja Interacts With Alok Mittal, CEO, Indifi Technologies And Spoke To Him
Idea Generation
During the time of my exit at Venture Capital firm Canaan Partners, an inclination of starting up again creped in. Given my history of successfully sold Jobs Ahead to Monster.com, once again the itch to start set in. After evaluating a plethora of options and process of shortlisting, I narrowed down to about three in sectors such as education, healthcare and inclusive finance.
Then I was lucky to have met Siddharth and soon the debt-financing platform idea started gaining traction both from an interest and an opportunity perspective. There are millions of SME’s out there who need the support that Indifi intends to provide. Thus, Indifi took formal shape sometime as FY 2016 set in.
Special Key Features
At Indifi, we collect demographic, business and financial data, and analyse it to assist SME’s and SMB’s in securing credit from banks and non-banking financial companies.
We follow a segment-specific approach and lending products in any given segment are tightly integrated with the business cash flows and transactional linkages in that segment. Currently, we are live present in six segments – Travel, Hotels, Retail, Cabs, Manufacturing and Ecommerce.
Differentiation Factors
What exists in the market today as platforms are primarily NBFC’s in the digital space which do not have the kind of multi-lender capabilities that Indifi has. As more and more lenders come on board, our ability to offer debt-finance to a larger segment of customers would be better than any single NBFC. Also, we are focussing very hard to stay completely digital and invest in our credit engine to deliver value by inculcating multiple set of indicators and viewing the same borrower through multiple lenses – this would set us apart from the competition in the future as well.
Challenges Faced
Honing down to the right idea was a challenge. We needed to be at least sure of what we were going to offer as a product and how would we do it. The founding team criss-crossed through the country speaking to countless SME’s and SMB’s to figure out what are their pain-points and carving out our offering to help resolve. This wasn’t easy and the learning still continues
Monetization And Traction Details
We get a loan processing fee from the borrower and get a service fee from the lenders over the loan lifecycle
We have processed over 1000 loans and operating on a monthly run rate of over 200 loans.
Funding Details
Indifi has raised first round of funding from Accel Partners and Elevar Equity along with contributions from a group of Angel investors which include Rajan Anandan, Gaurav Dalmia, Abhishek Goyal, Gagan Hasteer and Arun Tadanki. Also, Pramod Bhasin, founder and former CEO of Genpact, is an adviser and investor in the company.
Market Size And Opportunity
There are 29.8 million enterprises in SME space. There is a total finance requirement of INR 32.5 trillion ($650 billion) in the MSME sector, which comprises of INR 26 trillion ($ 520 Billion) of debt demand and INR 6.5 trillion ($130 Billion) of equity demand. (Source – IFC report on MSME)
