Fintech company Lendingkart Technologies Private Limited has acquired digital lending platform Upwards Fintech Private Limited for ₹100 crore, said Harshvardhan Lunia, CEO and Founder, Lendingkart.

Founded in 2017, Upwards offers personal loans to salaried professionals at competitive pricing. Upwards’ Proprietary Technology Platform offers facilities such as automated loan underwriting and disbursement process; crunching the timeline for the process to a few hours, which would otherwise take days to accomplish. Upwards’ solution has been particularly useful for the lower-income segments that remain largely unaddressed by formal financial institutions.

Lending capabilities

Lunia told businessline, “Our acquisition of Upwards aligns with our mission of providing finance to the underserved through robust technology. Upwards has the best-in-class lending capabilities for its target marketplace in providing personal loans.” 

With this partnership, Upwards will be aptly positioned to execute its strategy of helping customers smoothly obtain personal loans. Together, we are embarking upon the journey of improving access to credit to change the face of India’s financial ecosystem by bringing the indigent population on the financial map, he added. 

Shunwei Capital, one of the investors in Upwards, will be exiting the company following this acquisition, said the company. Upwards credit underwriting engine uses complex algorithms to analyse more than 500 data points from a wide range of sources which has enabled it to maintain superior credit quality. It has also created a strong interface to deliver an improved lending experience to its customers.  

Expanding presence

Abhishek Soni, Co-Founder at Upwards, said, “We are extremely elated to team up with Lendingkart. Upwards has created a strong credit product for the low-income segment. With Lendingkart’s credit, and capital and distribution capability, we plan to deepen our presence across the country to bridge the massive credit gap in the personal loan market in India.”

Founded in 2014 by Harshvardhan Lunia, Lendingkart has offices in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurugram, and has service reach across India. The group is financed by international investors like Fullerton Financial Holding (FFH) (100 per cent subsidiary of Singapore Sovereign Fund Temasek Holdings), Bertelsmann, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, Sistema Asia, India Quotient, and others and has raised around ₹1,050 crore of equity till date.

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