Datasigns Technologies, a mobile first financial technology startup that operator of lending platform Shubh Loans has raised $1.5 million in pre-series-A funding from SRI Capital, BeeNext and Pravega Ventures. The firm plans to utilize freshly infused fund to grow its technology team and expand to 25 markets from seven.

Prior to this round, the company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Sanjai Vohra, former MD of JP Morgan, V Bunty Bohra, India CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Peeyush Misra, a former partner at Goldman Sachs.

Commenting on the development, Sashi Reddi, Founder, SRI Capital said, “Many massive companies are going to be built in this space, finally being able to lend to the next 200 million consumers ­ Shubh Loans will be one of them.” Reddi has earlier invested in enterprise SaaS companies including Identropy and Yellow Dig.

At $1.2 trillion, India is estimated to be one of the largest markets for consumer finance in the world, behind the US and China. It is also one of the least evolved markets for lending, with close to 70% of the market being underserved by institutional lenders. According to a report by international philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network, over 400 million people borrowed money in India in 2014, but fewer than one in seven were approved for a formal loan. The ratio of consumer loans to GDP for India is at a low 11%, compared to countries like China which is close to 40%.

This show that the current credit system is not working for a large part of our population. Almost 400 million people are being excluded because of traditional and archaic ways of credit scoring.

According to the company website, Datasigns aims to democratize credit and make it available to all. Their technology platform, Shubh Loans is transforming consumer lending. It is doing so by busting the myths that it is hard to get data, difficult to store it and even tougher to use it. The platform help loan companies to make smarter credit decisions and to expand the availability of fair and transparent credit.

Founded in 2016 by Monish Anand, Rahul Sekar, Anand Barua and Tushar Patel, Shubh Loans is a vernacular language app that builds a proprietary credit score and report for loan applicants, who can then borrow from any of the nine banks and NBFCs on the platform.

“We are targeting people who do not have access to bank loans and bring them into the formal banking economy. Using the Shubh Loans app, users can apply for a loan of up to Rs 2 lakh for a maximum time of two years,” said Monish Anand, CEO of Shubh Loans.

The company claims that since its launch, over 60,000 customers have built their credit score using Shubh Loans. The platform further boasts to have a monthly growth rate of 50% and aims to bring over 10 lakh people into the formal banking system through its lending and credit-building product.
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