Cloud Lending Platform Lentra Closes Series-B led by Bessemer Venture Partners, SIG and Citi Ventures, Transaction of $ 60 Mn

Funds to be used for product strengthening and international expansion

Lentra, the class leading Cloud lending platform, has closed its Series B funding round with a transaction value of USD 60 mn, led by existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and SIG Venture Capital with participation from Citi Ventures. Masterkey Capital were the Investment Bankers. The funding will be used for products+platform strengthening and also for International expansion, including the USA.

D Venkatesh, Founder & CEO, Lentra said “We see a massive opportunity for ourselves in the retail assets and business banking areas worldwide. At the same time, our clients see us as a source of competitive advantage for their business. Ten-fold revenue growth and some of the biggest retail banks as our clients now, act as markers of our solution architecture. I am excited that our investors see the same opportunity and are confident of our ability to execute.”

The four-year-old technology startup is one of the fastest growing enterprise SaaS companies in India, empowering banks to embrace fully digital processes. Lentra Lending Cloud offers ready-to-use 3rd party API connectors to various data sources that banks crave to hook into. Several types of pre-configured loan journeys for originations, Loan management system, cutting-edge customer intelligence and a no-code Business rules engine (BREx) constitute some significant modules for clients to use out of the box. Clients can choose to use all or some of these modules as per their requirements.

“We’re excited to partner with Lentra to help establish their footprint globally. Lentra is empowering lenders to fuel the dreams of millions with effective financial inclusion and credit decisioning” said Vishal Gupta, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "We were really impressed with the combination of their technology prowess and the commercial advantage that Lentra is delivering to their clients. We look forward to helping them continue to achieve their vision of becoming the most trusted and sought after cloud-native digital lending platform, empowering clients in democratizing credit through accurate decisioning and rapid processing."

Bhavanipratap Rana, Investment Advisor to SIG said, “Banking lending software is an area where innovation has not kept pace with product releases, due to monolithic legacy software. Lentra through its modular lending cloud architecture has helped some of the largest banks in India democratize credit access by expanding into newer retail assets through instant configurable lending journeys."

We are excited to support Lentra which was SIG’s first Indian VC investment in 2019. Since SIG’s investment, Lentra has demonstrated superior metrics on revenue retention and grown 20x, while exhibiting strong capital efficiency. SIG is excited for Lentra’s next phase of growth as it embarks on serving global customers.”

Everett Leonidas, Director & APAC Lead Investor for Citi Ventures, added, “Lentra is our first fintech investment in India, and we are very excited about the team’s ability to develop and scale low-friction software solutions for lenders. As a global bank, we look forward to Lentra scaling their products and platform internationally.”

Lentra has been at the forefront of digital lending transformation since 2019. It has more than 50 clients in India and will be using the funding to expand overseas in Asia and the USA

About Lentra

Founded in 2018 by D Venkatesh and Ankur Handa, Lentra is a lending platform designed and developed to empower banks with a fully digital ecosystem. The Lentra lending cloud services more than 40 banks and processes over 3 million applications monthly. It has processed over 13 billion transactions and $21Bn worth of Loans on its platform so far.

Bluetooth 5 Coming To An IoT Near You

It might seem hard to accept, but it has been over a decade since the term "Bluetooth" came into our lives.

Ten years ago, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) delivered on their promise of providing the world a secure wireless technology with faster speeds and longer ranges than previously ever witnessed for small and portable mobile devices. But much has changed now.Keeping in line with the changing times, the SIG has finally confirmed that the Bluetooth 5 standards have been finally been successfully adopted. It was during the beginning of the year that Bluetooth SIG had officially announced Bluetooth 5 in a formal press release.

The one thing that stands out in Bluetooth 5 is its phenomenal speed. The technology is now faster than ever with an improved range. The updated Bluetooth is twice the speed and four times the range of its predecessor, Bluetooth 4.2, with speeds of up to 2MBps. With a 8x broadcasting messaging capacity, Bluetooth 5 is capable enough to carry data/information to “low energy” devices such as smartwatches, headphones, and other Internet of Thing (IoT).



The new and improved speed of the latest Bluetooth, Bluetooth 5, enables more responsive, high-performance devices. In addition to this, the 8x increase in broadcast message size results in an increase in data being sent for much more improved and context relevant solutions. According to Bluetooth SIG, Bluetooth will continue embracing the technological advancements and keep pushing the unlimited potential that the world of IOT posses.

As for the users, not only will they get to witness an impressive improvement with device pairing and higher data transfer rates, but the updated Bluetooth, Bluetooth 5, will also ensure that it doesn't suffer from any outside interference from other wireless devices, which are making use of LTE and Wi-Fi spectrums. Bluetooth 5 will be best Bluetooth till date when it comes to avoiding congestion, and making other wireless devices work better and more efficiently no matter what is their spectrum.

Bluetooth 5 is expected to hit the world markets somewhere around summer next year. The rumour mill is already going strong with the news that the next-generation Apple iPhone will flaunt the new, improved BT5 standard. In the year 2018, the world could also witness a separate update for Bluetooth Audio.

So, 2017 seems to be turning up quite well already, Bluetooth wise at least. What say?