Kinara Capital raises Rs 100 crore from Gaja Capital, others

Kinara Capital has secured a funding of Rs 100 crores on Thursday from private equity and impact investors — Gaja Capital, GAWA Capital, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Patamar Capital. This round of funding will help accelerate Kinara Capital’s growth in new and existing markets and increase its investment in technology to improve customer experience and assess credit decisions at a faster rate. Kinara Capital has disbursed Rs 1160 crores across 33,785+ loans to date, which has positively impacted over half a million lives in India.

Hardika Shah, Founder and CEO of Kinara Capital, said, “We are honored with the vote of confidence from our investors as we aim to reach new milestones by investing in our people and technology. Impact-focused sustainable growth is at the heart of all that we do to create access to capital for small business entrepreneurs. When committed to transforming lives, we believe in leading by example - we run a profitable organization that practices integrity, transparency, and treats customers with dignity.”

Kinara Capital provides fast and flexible loans in the Rs 2-25 Lakh range without taking property collateral from small business entrepreneurs. Majority of customers return to Kinara for additional capital needs as their business grows. Women were hired in 22% of the jobs created by small businesses funded by Kinara Capital, and about 28% of all jobs went to first-time earners.

Kinara Capital built a fully digital platform that eliminates paperwork and saves time for both customers and employees to fast track the credit decision process. Funds are disbursed within 5-7 days of receiving the loan application. The company will now expand investment in services that refine the customer experience with features such as autopay and auto-disbursement. On the backend, the company will further develop its proprietary machine-learning lending algorithms to fast track financial inclusion for thousands of small business entrepreneurs.

Combining technology with personalized customer service is the Kinara way. On-the-ground field staff offers doorstep service to customers to assist with the application process, and communicates in their preferred regional language. With 90 current branches, the company plans to add 20 branches in high-growth locations in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Kinara Capital currently has an employee base of 1,000 employees and plans to fill about 300 more roles this year.