FlexiLoans.com was incorporated in February 2016 to offer quick, hassle-free and flexible working capital financing options to small and medium sized businesses. The company concentrated on building ‘industry-first’ technology along with differentiated credit underwriting techniques that helped to process MSME loan applications with great speed, superior quality and better repayment methods.
After 6 months of sustained growth using its own capital, the company raised funds from Marquee bankers like Sanjay Nayar (CEO: KKR-India), Anil Jaggia, Vikram Sud worth Rs. 100 Crores. It was a turning moment for the young start-up and was incidentally one of the largest seed stage round raised by a FinTech startup in Asia.
FlexiLoans.com has so far served over 3000 underserved and unserved small businesses in 400+ cities pan India and is a leader in Data led credit decisioning and financing. It has consistently ranked as a leading Digital partner for E-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart and many others and works extensively with 80+ National partners.
Market Trends Leading to the Inception of Flexi Loans
In early 2015, the entire business environment was marred with NPA gloom and lackluster funds availability for business growth. While serving the industry, FlexiLoans.com witnessed the progress of numerous players in advanced markets like the USA and Europe that influenced and supported millions of businesses using Data based lending post the sub-prime crisis shook these countries. These players lent at differential/ higher rates but based on cash flow statements– which were missing in India in the formal sector. It began ideating about FlexiLoans.com after witnessing the progress of Jan-Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile penetration that were shaping the Digital DNA of the country.
80% of SMEs in India (~30M in number) don’t have access to formal credit due to insufficient credit history or a complex process. FlexiLoans.com aims at using new-age technology to provide quick, fast and transparent funding access to these deserving small businesses.
The Righteous and Tenacious Team
Founded by 4 friends from Indian School of Business (ISB), Abhishek, Deepak, Manish and Ritesh are seasoned banking, financial services, start-up and technology professionals with a deep interest in adding value to the economy by the path they have chosen. What sets them apart is the vintage and combined experience of over 50 years working globally in senior positions in corporations like Citi, Tata group, Aditya Birla Group, Axis capital, Barclays and Fractal analytics.
Abhishek Kothari – MBA from ISB, B.Tech from IIT Bombay
Abhishek is an IIT Bombay alumnus with over 13 years of experience in data science and machine learning. Having built big data strategies for over 20 banks across the world, he has an in-depth perspective on customer lifecycle across the lending landscape. For the last 6 years, he was in the heart of FinTech in London witnessing the growth of payments and lending ecosystem. Post that, he moved back to India to bring his experience to build FlexiLoans.com
Deepak Jain – MBA from ISB & Chartered Accountant
Deepak has over 12+ years of experience across Investment Banking and Management Consulting with Axis Capital (Enam) and JSW Ltd. Raised over USD 10 Bn across 40+ deals across sectors with over 10 deals in BFSI sector. He maintains strong relationships with top Indian corporates, private equity and capital markets investors.
Manish Lunia – MBA from ISB (Dean’s List) & Chartered Accountant (Rank holder)
Manish is a Financial Services Professional with ~13+ years of experience in M&A, NBFC, Wealth Management, and Telecom. Performed holistic business evaluation and diligence for some of India’s largest M&A deals and restructuring at Aditya Birla Group, Tata Teleservices. Worked in 3 start-up growth phases of leading Indian companies and in CEO’s Office during Indian NBFC‘s transformation of 10x growth.
Ritesh Jain – MBA from ISB (Dean’s List) & Chartered Accountant
Ritesh carries 14 years of experience in startups, finance and technology domains. An Ex- CFO at housing.com and Implemented and integrated 12+ IT systems at Tata Teleservices- including Fraud management, SAS, Cognos, CRM and Business intelligence tools. Banking & International stints with Citibank and Starwood Hotels. He has built, scaled and managed teams of over 100 people.
Diverse Range of Leading-edge Products
FlexiLoans.com is changing the lending paradigm by providing Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) with Loan products that can be accessed without visiting a branch over mobile, web, chat, and Email with the below features:
- Minimalistic documentation for KYC and Credit assessment
- No collaterals
- Loan sanctions within 48 hours
- Servicing over 400+ cities Pan India
- Flexible ticket sizes of Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 50 Lacs
- Loan tenures ranging from 6 months to 36 months
The products suite services customers across the MSME spectrum:
- Working Capital Term Loans and Line of Credit – For Business expansion/ Seasonal Inventory Loans
- POS (Point of Sale) Loans – for Retailers with high retail growth/ short-term requirements
- Supply Chain Finance- Vendor Financing for Large and Mid-size corporates
Through these products, the company aims to create a pure form of FinTech lending company which embodies the digital DNA and utilizes data to its smartest form. While the market is huge, and differentiation is not a guarantee to succeed, below are a few mentionable aspects of the products that are unique:
- The only full-spectrum FinTech lender to serve all financing needs of an SME through technology based assets. The company has 4 mature financial products to offer which is an industry first.
- Data-First approach with a dedicated computer vision team – 4 Patentable tech assets and algorithms that have been able to reduce the TAT dramatically to sub 48 hours, the lowest in the Industry.
- One amongst very few micro business loans provider starting from as low as Rs. 50,000 and average ticket size of sub 10 lacs for tenures as low as 3 months accessible in over 400 locations Pan India with a plan to disburse in over 1000 locations within this year.
Eclipsing Challenges and Rising to the Occasion
Every company has ideas but translating those ideas into a tangible product offering is what separates doers from thinkers. In the journey of conceptualizing access of Business funding to millions of Indians who were not able to get funds from Banks and NBFCs, FlexiLoans too had to face their share of dejections, frustrations and slow down.
Within 6 months into operations, most businesses in the country got impacted by Demonetization. One of the premier E-commerce lending platform scaled downs operations heavily that resulted into a heavy drop of business volumes. All these events within a launch of a year have been tough but the entity witnessed a thick silver line in the road ahead powered by more data, more transparency and better ways to do good business.
Attributes to Success
“Being true, transparent and clear to the customer who subscribes to your product is the key to our philosophy”
There are a few values that guides the way a FlexiLoans.com operates. Innovation, Agility, Ownership of one’s task, and Respect. There are times when the core founding members disagree, however collaborating together has helped to achieve results. This has further assisted in taking unanimous choice on managing the key aspects of the company.
The Propositions for Future
The company strongly believes that it is present at the right time and in the right space which is supported ably by a Strong Founding team (B-school friends), Marquee Banking investors and Industry first technology.
Exclusive features like 100% Branchless model, dream Founding, passionate employees and proprietary data science and technology backed application processing and underwriting have made FlexiLoans.com to create benchmarks and take the company to new milestones in future.
