Pocketly Infotech Pvt. Ltd., the Bengaluru based Fintech startups and a portfolio of 100X.VC, which provides small ticket loans to students, is looking to expand its portfolio rapidly and is targeting 100% month-on-month growth.
Pocketly that employs artificial intelligence and machine learning to offers quick, short-term loans to empower college students in India, has registered around 50% month-on-month growth since lockdown.
The loan book of the company that was founded in 2019 by Navdeesh Ahuja, who previously managed Udaan’s credit business and Aarav Bhatia, who has run NBFC business, stood at Rs 15 lakh as on March 31, 2020. It now stands at Rs 1 crore at the end of October 2020, thus registering tremendous growth over the last six months. Both Navdeesh & Aarav are batchmates and alumni of VIT Vellore.
Commenting on the future plan of the company, Mr. Aarav Bhatia, Founder, Pocketly said, “The loan book numbers are encouraging and growing rapidly month over month. The loans which were sourced post Covid, have better repayment rates when compared with pre-covid months. The last few months have been great for the company. Next two quarters are expected to be even better as we are focusing aggressively on new loans sourcing after encouraging collections numbers of Q1 and Q2.”
“At 100X.VC, we are excited to be the first Institutional investor in Pocketly. They are filling a big gap in providing organized short-term funding in an efficient manner to students, who will no longer need to rely on informal sources. With the huge demand for such short-term loans for students and the use of technology at each step of the journey, Pocketly is slated for rapid growth”, said Ninad Karpe, Partner, 100X.VC
Pocketly aims to serve college students that are unserved by Banks and NBFCs and is looking to expand its platform Pocketly from 1500 colleges to 3000 colleges in the next quarter.
The availability of low-priced smartphones and amid ever increasing internet penetration, which is mainly driven by one of the cheapest internet charges in the world, a large number of students interact with digital micro lenders like Pocketly to meet their pocket loan needs. It not only helps in making the lending process easier for both the lenders and the borrowers, but it also reduces the costs of operations significantly.
The availability of low-priced smartphones and amid ever increasing internet penetration, which is mainly driven by one of the cheapest internet charges in the world, a large number of students interact with digital micro lenders like Pocketly to meet their pocket loan needs. It not only helps in making the lending process easier for both the lenders and the borrowers, but it also reduces the costs of operations significantly.
The company is looking to grow with a pan India presence which will assist the wide cross section of students across the country to avail loans through the app only platform. The platform offers loans ranging from Rs.500-Rs.10,000 to students for short term credit needs at 1%-3% monthly interest rate. The platform aims to lend 100 Crore in the next financial year ,and hopes to create more such financial products for college students and graduates early in their careers. The company plans to raise Series A round in the coming FY of 2021-22.
