Kissht Raises Rs.100 Crore Funding Led by Trifecta Capital and Northern Arc

Kissht, which provides instant line of credit for small business transactions and small ticket size personal loans to new to credit customers on the back of robust data analytics (Kissht score), will use this funding to deepen its presence across India and further expand its product offering including credit cards for the owners of small business/shops to become the leading institution of choice for its segment.

In its latest investment round, Kissht has raised Rs 100 crores in funding led by Trifecta Capital and Northern Arc. The company has so far raised over Rs 270 crores in equity and over 1,200 crores in debt investments. In the current round, Trifecta and Nothern Arc have each subscribed to Rs 50 crores of Non ConvertibleDebentures (NCD’s). The company will utilize the funds to expand its scale of operations, further enhance its product offerings including credit cards for small business/shops and further improve underwriting capabilities to extend credit to New to Credit (NTC) segment using AI and machine learning even in smaller tier towns of India where instant credit is still a dream to many. Kissht plans to expand its business to 10mn unique borrowers and total transaction-liked credit volume to Rs 10,000 crores in FY’2023 (3x higher than FY’2022). Kissht is projecting an overall revenue of over Rs 500 crores and a PBT of over 50 crores for FY’2022.

Speaking of the funding, Krishnan Vishwanathan, Co-Founder, Kissht, said that “Our aim at Kissht is to bring instant, hassle-free credit on the back of our self- learning, strong underwriting and collection capabilities paving the way for lower income and small-business owner segment. This funding will further aid our goal of removing financial constraints, expanding our footprint across tier-2 centres in India.”

Added Rahul Khanna, Managing Partner, Trifecta Capital, “We at Trifecta are pleased to partner with Kissht in the next leg of its growth journey, as it establishes itself as the leading credit and payments platform for small and micro-business owners and the new-to-credit segment. Kissht is catering to a large and untapped opportunity in India today, and has demonstrated leadership in this segment through focused customer acquisition, underwriting prowess, control on credit costs and innovative collection processes".

About Kissht:

Kissht is one of the instant line of credit platform catering to the lower mass market and small/micro- business segment in India. With its proprietary risk and underwriting models and proposition built around instant, hassle-free credit for business and consumption, Kissht has established itself as a leader in the segment with over 3 million unique borrowers and funding close to 5mn transactions on an annualized basis. Kissht was founded in 2015 by IIT graduates and former McKinsey consultants who have extensively served financial services firms.

About Trifecta Capital:

Trifecta Capital pioneered the nascent asset class of venture debt funds in 2014 through launch of its first venture debt fund. Since then, Trifecta Capital has across its three venture debt funds, invested over Rs. 2700 crores in 85 early growth and growth stage start-ups. The Trifecta portfolio includes 17 unicorns and several soonicorns. Trifecta Capital also launched a late stage equity fund, the Trifecta Leaders Fund-1 in May 2021 and has invested more than 750 crores till date from this fund. Trifecta has also built a customised technology and advisory platform with Assets Under Advisory of ~ Rs. 2000+ Crs., to further support fast-growing startups.

Fintech Startup Kissht Raises $10 Mn Funding Led By China's Fosun

Mumbai-based fintech startup Kissht, has raised $10 million (Rs 67 crore) in a funding round led by China’s Fosun International, a report in a financial daily stated.

The funding round also saw participation from the startup’s existing investors VC firm Endiya Partners and early-stage investor Ventureast, The Economic Times reported, citing two unnamed people in the know.

Kissht is expected to use the capital raised to further grow its presence across the country, as well as a strengthen its data science capabilities, and building its engineering and analytics tep ams. In an earlier conversation with ET, e Kissht CEO Vishwanathan had said that the startup planned to expand from India's top 15-20 cities to go deeper into the country.

Prior to the latest funding, the 2-year old company had raised about $3 million across its seed and Series-A equity financing rounds. ET was the first to report the firm's last funding round in its edition dated June 22. Investec acted as the financial advisor to the transaction.

Founded in 2015 by Krishnan Vishwanathan, Kissht is a financial technology platform that enables instant, seamless credit for consumers to make purchases at digital points of sale (online and offline).

Recently, the startup was in news when it announce its partnership with Andhra Pradesh government and announced to setup an office Vizag fintech valley. As per a post put up by the state’s IT Minister Nara Lokesh, Kissht alone will create around 300 jobs including 50 data scientists.