MSME lender Lendingkart’s losses up 65% in FY20; revenue jumps 20%

Credit and Finance for MSMEs: Small business lender Lendingkart, which provides working capital loans and business loans, has reported a 20.2 per cent increase in standalone revenue and a 65 per cent jump in standalone losses for the financial year 2019-20. While revenues had increased from Rs 9.1 crore in FY19 to Rs 10.95 crore in FY20, the losses widened from Rs 31 crore to Rs 51.2 crore during the said period, according to the regulatory filings. Expenses too increased 55 per cent from Rs 40.1 crore in FY19 to Rs 62.1 crore in FY20. However, its consolidated revenues increased from Rs 222 crore to Rs 470 crore while losses jumped from Rs 3.9 crore to Rs 21.6 crore between FY19 and FY20. The company’s subsidiaries included Lendingkart Finance and Lendingkart Account Aggregator.

The major expenses for Lendingkart in FY20 were Rs 15.21 crore towards advertising and promotion, Rs 14.76 crore for depreciation, depletion, and amortisation, Rs 19.82 crore towards employee benefits, etc. “Lendingkart Group remains focused on profitable operations, seeking to conserve cash, borrowing long-term, strengthening collections, rationalizing expenditure, and preserving capital,” the filing read.

Also read: WestBridge exits IPO-bound Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed gaming startup Nazara in secondary transaction

Lendingkart Technologies had in November 2020 had launched its co-lending SaaS service Lendingkart 2gthr to enable its financial institution partners including banks and NBCFs get on-board its platform within two weeks and disburse unsecured loans to MSMEs. It had partnered with banks and NBFCs in a risk-sharing partnership to help them reach out and lend to MSMEs located remotely. “MSMEs will digitally fill up the loan application, post which LendingKart’s proprietary Credit Scoring Engine and the best-fit algorithm will match the MSME borrower with the right lender on the LendingKart 2gthr platform,” Harshvardhan Lunia, Co-Founder & MD, Lendingkart Technologies had told Financial Express Online.

The company had increased its disbursement in FY20 by around 85 per cent to around 53,000 loans involving Rs 2,500 crore from FY19. Its Assets Under Management (AUM) for the year were around Rs 2,400 crores up 80 per cent from the preceding financial year. Backed by Fullerton Financial Holding, Bertelsmann, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, Sistema Asia, India Quotient, and others, Lendingkart enables lending between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 crore for a period of one to 36 months.