lentra: Fintech SaaS firm Lentra raises $60 million in funding
Citi Ventures also participated in the round.
The company said it would use the capital to expand into international markets, for acquisitions and for product improvement.
The Pune-based company is expected to enter Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines by March next year and have an international presence in five geographies outside India by the end of 2023.
It will also focus on acquisitions to improve data and statistical engines, as well as add payment processing capabilities to improve collections on the stack.
The company is expected to look for acquisitions in the robotic process automation sector to further automate processes including documentation for loan applications.
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Founded in 2018, Lentra is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider that helps banks and credit institutions further digitize credit disbursements and assist them with various aspects of loan servicing, including know-your-customer (KYC) compliance ), service and collection.
Almost three quarters of Lentra’s income comes from loan assignments.
It also provides banks and financial institutions with an early signal of default and bad debt, and conducts portfolio scrubs to determine the health of their loan portfolio.
“With this fundraise, we have quite a large war chest and will look at opportunities to buy out talent as well as revamp our systems, in an effort to better serve our customers,” founder and CEO D Venkatesh told ET.
The company had revenues of Rs 80 crore (or about $10 million) for FY22, Venkatesh said. It looks set to end the current fiscal year with revenues of Rs 180 crore (about $22 million).
With the geographic expansion, the company expects almost half of its total revenue to come from non-Indian markets by the end of 2024.
With the funding, Lentra is also expected to strengthen headcount across core engineering functions and take the total team size to 700 from 500 currently.
Starting next year, Lentra is also expected to enter the performance analytics space to help bank partners understand conversions of their various loan products.
“Lentra empowers lenders to fuel the dreams of millions with efficient financial inclusion and credit decisions. We were truly impressed by the combination of their technological prowess and the commercial advantage that Lentra delivers to its clients,” said Vishal Gupta, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners .
Lentra works with over 50 banking partners and financial institutions in India, and the platform processes more than three million loan applications every month.
Since its inception, Lentra has processed more than 13 billion transactions and loans worth $21 billion through its platform.
“Lentra is our first fintech investment in India and we are very excited about the team’s ability to develop and scale low-friction software solutions for lenders. As a global bank, we look forward to Lentra scaling their products and platform internationally, says Everett Leonidas, director and APAC lead investor for Citi Ventures.
In June, Lentra acquired Chennai-based artificial intelligence startup TheDataTeam (TDT). It is expected to deploy TDT’s customer intelligence platform, Cadenz, to help customers make data-driven decisions related to customers’ creditworthiness.
