LenDenClub launches FinTech venture fund for seed and pre-series start-ups

By Leandra Monteiro

In its bid to identify and nurture innovative tech and FinTech focused start-ups, LenDenClub, India’s largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform, has launched a venture fund called ‘LenDenClub Alpha’ which will focus on seed and pre-series stage FinTech start-ups. LenDenClub Alpha aims to onboard early-stage start-ups, offering them mentorship and access to capital thereby enabling them to accelerate their growth journey and boosting the country’s ‘Digital India’ vision.

Apart from capital infusion through LenDenClub Alpha, LenDenClub plans to utilize its expertise in the fintech space to mentor these start-ups to plan and grow in the right direction to become the next disruptors in the fintech space. The fund aims to assist its investee start-ups by offering mentorship, technological upgradation, driving customer acquisition, and building innovative products for the masses among others. With the fund’s launch, the platform is planning to make a strategic move to take early bets that may lead to the expansion of the fintech start-up ecosystem.

Designed to help start-ups scale at an accelerated pace, LenDenClub Alpha will hand-pick seed and pre-series stage ventures to unleash their growth potential. The platform will help start-ups design their vision and build a robust business model that offers tech-backed futuristic products to create optimum consumer impact. The platform intends to invest funds based on the requirements and potential of the particular start-up. LenDenClub Alpha will therefore focus on startups in the space of Lendtech, Wealthtech, Neobanks, Underwriting Tools, and other allied segments.

Bhavin Patel, Co-founder and CEO of LenDenClub, said, “India has today emerged as the second biggest start-up hub in the world. With the hyperactive momentum being witnessed across the start-up ecosystem, it becomes significant for established start-up players to take the lead in paving a transformative approach toward capability building. At LenDenClub Alpha, we want promising start-ups to ride on the knowledge, and expertise that we have built over a period of time, thereby enabling them to grow at an accelerated pace. We believe in the power of ‘shared vision’ and ‘shared growth’ and it’s about time for us to extend this approach beyond LenDenClub.

We envision India to emerge as the global fintech leader and LenDenClub Alpha is a giant leap towards this vision, whereby we aim to help our fellow start-ups to build innovative products and register high-scale growth.”

LenDenClub, which aspires to become a digital bank in the near future, has been steadily expanding its product portfolio to meet the needs of its borrowers and investors. LenDenClub recently raised $10 million from Artha Venture Fund, Kunal Shah, cricketer Hardik Pandya, Tuscan Venture, Ohm Stock Brokers and other notable investors. The fast-growing platform has formed a new arm to enhance the scale of India’s start-up ecosystem.

LenDenClub currently has over 3.5 million+ borrowers and 1.8 million+ investors and has registered fresh loan disbursements of INR 3,000 crore during FY22. The platform’s fresh annual loan disbursements grew by 200x from FY19 to FY22.