Page 21 - The 20 Most Promising Co-founders in Business Industry 2019

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Indifi works with are YES Bank,
RBL Bank and IDFC bank. The
NBFC list includes Edelweiss,
IndiaInfoline, Capital First
and Aditya Birla Finance.
Addressing the SME financing
gap
Non-availability of timely and
adequate credit at reasonable
interest rates posed challenges
for MSMEs. Banks were prone
towards risk aversion when it came to debt financing. They tend to be
to lending to MSMEs because of
the insufficient collateral micro-
enterprises and first-generation
entrepreneurs possess.
The total financial requirement in
the MSME sector is $650 billion,
$520 billion of debt demand and
$130 billion of equity. The viable
and addressable debt demand is
estimated to be $198 billion. Micro
and small enterprises account for
97 per cent of the viable debt gap;
working capital demand accounts
for about 61 per cent of this debt
demand.
Currently, this need is being met by
the informal sector, which includes
moneylenders and chit funds. This
│September 2019
We are a technology platform
creating easy loan origination, and
leverage our segment understanding “
to create risk models
represents a significant opportunity do not have the kind of multi-
for Indian financial institutions lender capabilities that Indifi has.
that seek to address the “missing
middle” by providing debt products Two Businesses
and services designed to meet the Indifi has two businesses – one, a
needs of this market. And that’s
where Indifi Technologies is aiming marketplace where other banks and
to make a mark. NBFCs can come and lend to the
small businesses, and the other, an
Future Plans NBFC that provides loans on its
books. Alok is convinced that the
Most SMEs do not have a strong vertical strategy will be the best for
credit data footprint when it comes Indifi and it will continue to focus
on a few select verticals. Over
excluded from the formal financial time, it will go deeper into these
system, especially if they can’t verticals.
offer collateral.
Beyond traditional lending
Alok is aiming to change that.
Indifi decided that a traditional
Indifi Technologies has till date branch-led origination of loans
disbursed more than 2,000 loans for small businesses would not
in the range of Rs 50,000 to Rs 50 be effective if they were to focus
lakh. In the next two to three years, on verticals. It was fortuitous for
they aim to grow multi-fold in Alok that at the time they were
terms of the borrowers they serve working on their venture, the
and, consequently, in terms of internet was bringing a whole lot
revenue. of aggregators into play and each
Gaining a Competitive Edge of these aggregators had a large
number of small businesses on their
The platforms that exist in the network. Indifi would tap into these
market currently are primarily aggregators to access customers
NBFCs in the digital space. They and data
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