Mumbai-based digital lending startup SME Corner has raised Rs 90 crore in fresh funding in a mix of debt and equity. While Rs 35 crore of equity capital has come from Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund managed by Quona Capital another Rs 10 crore was infused by existing investors including Accion Venture Lab.
Besides the equity funding, Rs 45 crore of debt funding came from institutions like Northern Arc and Vivriti Finance. SME Corner, which lends money to small retailers in nine cities across three states, intends to use the proceeds to scale up operations to reach 30 cities by next fiscal year.
“We will be ending March with Rs 230 crore of disbursals and intend to reach Rs 900 crore by 2020 and ramp up operations to serve 12,000 customers,” said Samir Bhatia, chief executive officer at SME Corner. The startup, which has got its own lending licence in February 2018, has 3,000 customers who are mostly small merchants across categories such as readymade garment stores, chemists, kirana stores, food outlets, and hardware stores.
