OfBusiness, a startup that lends to small and medium enterprises, has raised Rs 250 crore led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Falcon Edge and Matrix Partners.
OfBusiness provides unsecured credit up to Rs 2 crore to SMEs through its own NBFC Oxyzo Financial Services, as well as by partnering with other financial institutions including Tata Capital and AU Small Finance Bank, among others.
Asish Mohapatra, CEO, OfBusiness said, “We strongly believe that lending is a commodity or will get commoditised in the future. The only way to monetise, engage and create network effects in lending is by adding services that are inherently valuable to the customer while being profitable on a stand-alone basis for the financier.”
The capital infusion comes at a time when the overall financial services sector has been under stress due to a liquidity squeeze. Niren Shah, MD and Head of India at Norwest said, “We are delighted to partner with the OfBusiness team which we believe has built an exceptional track record in tech-based SME lending to the manufacturing and core sector.”
Vikram Vaidyanathan, MD, Matrix Partners India, said, “OfBusiness team has succeeded in creating a unique model combining conservative underwriting and collections practices with the rapid scalability of it’s tech platform.” – Our Bureau
The company reported a revenue of Rs 401 crore on a loss of Rs 97 lakh for the fiscal year ended 2018, regulatory filings show.
OfBusiness was founded in 2015 by Mohapatra, former VC at Matrix Partners, Bhuvan Gupta, ex-vice president of engineering at Snapdeal, and former McKinsey partner Ruchi Kalra.