Digital lending platform Kissht has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Fosun RZ Capital, with participation from Prophet Capital, Beijing and existing investors Ventureast and Endiya Partners.
Kissht is a consumer credit start-up that allows consumers to pay for their online orders in monthly installments, without the need for a credit card.
The company will use the funding to expand its reach among more offline and online merchants, enhance its data science capabilities and venture into additional product categories.
It uses proprietory algorithms to assess the credit-worthiness of a potential buyer and process credit purchases instantly. Its self-learning algorithms assess a customer’s credit profile using more than 2,000 digital and social footprints.
Kissht previously raised $3 million in a series A round from Ventureast and Endiya Partners in 2016. Currently, Kissht is present in more than 50 online and 3,000 offline retailers, across categories such as consumer durables, electronics, health care and education.
Kissht was founded in 2015 by former McKinsey consultants Krishnan Vishwanathan and Ranvir Singh.
“Consumer credit in India is still largely untapped. Digital India is changing that rapidly, helping Kissht address this market in a prudent and cost-effective manner. The disruption posed by smartphones, AI, dispersed nature of opportunity, and changing consumption behaviour provides massive room for innovative business models. Kissht’s unique model has helped keep customer acquisition cost at one-fifth of the market. Sustaining this as we scale up will be the priority for us,” said Viswanathan and Singh in a statement.
After the announcement of demonetisation in November 2016, lending start-ups such as Faircent, Wishfin and Loantap reported an increase in credit purchases and personal loans on their platform.
Last month, Kissht’s competitor ZestMoney tied up with mobile handset maker Xiaomi to provide a monthly installment option for purchases on Xiaomi’s e-commerce portal Mi Store.
Source: Mint