Consumer lending start-up MoneyTap has raised $9 million in a funding round led by Sequoia India. Existing investors NEA and Prime Venture Partners also participated in the round. Founded in 2015 by Bala Parthasarathy, Anuj Kacker and Kunal Varma, the platform provides credit to salaried employees and self employed professionals through an app. It is in talks to partner with six banks for this, apart from its existing partnership with RBL. The company had raised $3.3 million in an earlier round.

The fresh funds will be used by MoneyTap to expand to 50 cities, from the current 14, and broaden its research on data science and analytics. It hopes to disburse credit worth Rs 300 crore by the end of this fiscal year.

“Since we are in the business of giving money, acquiring customers through the organic route and digital outreach is good enough for us to reap the scale we are looking at,” said Parthasarathy, who earlier founded Prime Ventures and photo printing company Snapfish. The platform says it evaluates a user’s eligibility in less than four minutes after which it provides an instant decision on the application along with the amount the user is eligible for.

Using the credit line, consumers can choose to borrow as little as Rs 3,000 or as much as Rs 5 lakh or up to their maximum eligibility limit. Customers can decide their own EMI plans with flexible payback periods ranging from 2 months to 3 years. Interest is paid only on the amount borrowed and rates can be as low as 1.25% per month.

Abheek Anand, Principal, Sequoia Capital India Advisors, said, “Consumer credit in India is highly under-penetrated and is a complex problem to solve. MoneyTap combines an experienced team with a designed product – and their strong early traction addresses this massive market opportunity.” The lending space is mainly dominated by players like Capital Float and Lendingkart that cater to loan requirements of SMEs while Moneytap focusses on individual lending.

Source: Times of India