Techfino, a tech-enabled non-banking financial company (NBFC), has raised ₹65 crore in funding from Stellaris Venture Partners and Saison Capital, the venture arm of Tokyo-listed financial company Credit Saison.
The fresh capital raised will be used to expand its branch network from 30 to 60 branches in the next 12 months, expand its team, enhance its technology platform, and scale its secured lending business focused on MSMEs in India’s underserved Tier II and III cities.
Founded in 2019 by Jayaprakash Patra, Rajesh Panda, and Ratikant Satapathy, Techfino provides Loan Against Property (LAP) to MSMEs in Tier II and III cities. It also provides education loans through a B2B2C model by establishing partnerships with education service providers.
The company offers MSME loans with ticket sizes ranging from ₹8 to ₹12 lakh. To date, Techfino has disbursed over 1 lakh loans and crossed ₹200 crore in assets under management (AUM).
The company currently disburses loans through a branch-driven model with operations across Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. The company aims to double its branches this year, scale disbursements and AUM, and build a secured lending business over the next 3-5 years.
Rajesh Panda, Co-founder, Techfino, said, “Out of the 640 million registered MSMEs in India, 390 million are not part of the formal credit economy. This segment, especially in rural and semi-urban markets, generates an estimated quarterly demand of Rs 200,000 crore. With banks and large NBFCs showing limited presence in this segment, we are leveraging our deep understanding of risk, superior underwriting capability, efficient in-house collection infrastructure and robust technology platform to serve this large, underserved market.”
He added, “We’ve been profitable since our first full year of operations, and our core strength has been a tight grip on asset quality. This fundraise is purely equity and will be used to drive growth through branch-led expansion and people hiring, especially for our MSME loan against property business. We’ve already crossed Rs 100 crore AUM in secured loans and are disbursing over Rs 10 crore every month. With this funding, we expect to double that monthly run rate.”
Ratikant Satapathy, Co-founder of Techfino, said, “At Techfino, we leverage a robust technology platform that we have internally developed from scratch. This platform integrates multiple external APIs to obtain and verify data critical for underwriting. This technology has resulted in higher efficiency, better data-driven risk assessment, and lower TAT.”
