Digital lending platform Kissht is preparing to raise $225 million through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). The company aims to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) by June 2025. This move comes as Kissht continues to expand its lending services and strengthen its market position in India’s fast-growing fintech sector.
Merchant Bankers Appointed
To manage the IPO process, Kissht has appointed ICICI Securities, UBS, and Motilal Oswal as merchant bankers. These firms will assist in regulatory filings, underwriting, and overall public listing management.
Raising $225 million through the IPO will help Kissht to expand its lending portfolio, invest in technology, and strengthen its risk assessment capabilities.
Strong Financial Performance
Kissht’s parent company, OnEMI Technology, reported an impressive financial performance for FY25. The company’s assets under management (AUM) crossed INR 4,200 crore, marking a 55% increase. This growth is mainly because of the company’s strategic focus on longer-tenure loans and secured lending, including loans against property.
There are different revenue streams of Kissht that contribute to its growth, including consumption loans, purchase financing, and MSME loans. The company has established partnerships with leading e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart to provide instant financing options at the point of purchase.
Business Model and Market Position
Founded in 2015 by Ranvir Singh and Krishnan Vishwanathan, Kissht has made a great name for itself as a key player in India’s digital lending space. The company provides unsecured personal loans to individuals and small businesses, helping bridge financial gaps with quick and accessible credit solutions.
Kissht operates across multiple segments, including:
Consumer lending: Personal loans for salaried and self-employed individuals.
E-commerce financing: Instant credit for purchases on online platforms.
MSME and business loans: Working capital and growth financing for small enterprises.
Navigating Regulatory Challenges
India’s fintech sector is under more scrutiny from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), especially in unsecured lending. However, Kissht’s leadership is confident, stating that regulators and industry players now agree on best practices for responsible digital lending.
With its upcoming IPO and strong growth, Kissht is set to expand further. Going public will help the company improve its services and grow its presence in India’s changing financial market.
Cricket player Sachin Tendulkar has joined Mumbai-based financial firm Kissht as a brand ambassador and strategic investor. The company stated that the move will help it grow its business and improve its credit finance products, but it did not reveal the deal’s financial details. According to the business, Tendulkar will be involved in a number of campaigns and integrated marketing initiatives as part of the partnership. Being connected to Kissht, a company that uses the power of finance to help Indians achieve their goals, is a pleasure. Tendulkar remarked, “Kissht’s emphasis on accessibility and trust resonated with me, and I look forward to supporting their journey in creating one of the most reputable and trusted digital financial platforms for millions of Indians.”
Building a Strong Financial Ecosystem
The partnership seeks to establish a robust financial ecosystem based on innovation, inclusivity, and trust. According to the corporation, the partnership seeks to transform India’s borrowing practices and provide financial access and opportunity for all Indians. When selecting the brand’s first spokesperson, the firm sought someone who would embody its basic values of speed and transparency in addition to demonstrating reliability and trust.
According to Kissht founder and CEO Ranvir Singh, the company is proud to be an Indian-made brand that caters to Indians and is symbolised by “The God” of the sport that all Indians swear by. Singh and Krishnan Vishwanathan founded Kissht, a digital lending platform, in 2015 with the goal of providing rapid and simple access to finance at the “lowest interest rates.” With a fully digital process and little paperwork, it provides personal loans up to INR 5 lakh.
Tendulkar Exploring the Startup Sector
Together with Karthik Gurumurthy, the former head of Swiggy Instamart, and Karan Arora, another former Swiggy executive, Tendulkar launched his own sports brand in August. Arora was the third cofounder. According to The Economic Times, the startup is also well along in the process of obtaining financing from a top venture capital firm. Tendulkar also made an undisclosed investment in Hyderabad-based AZAD Engineering last year.
Tendulkar’s stake in the Kerala Blasters FC of the Indian Super League (ISL) was one of his first economic endeavours. This action demonstrated his love of sports outside of cricket as well as his aptitude for spotting intriguing prospects in developing markets. In a nation where cricket is the most popular sport, the endeavour was successful and gave football a new level of excitement and popularity.
Tendulkar has demonstrated interest in the field of technology startups in addition to his athletic endeavours. His decision to invest in the software startup Smartron demonstrates his willingness to support creative concepts with significant growth potential. His cricketing mentality of supporting his skills and taking measured risks is reflected in this strategic investment approach.
Lessons from Tendulkar’s cricket career are also reflected in his business strategy. Similar to how every cricket match is unique and calls for flexibility and adaptability, businesses also need to be flexible in their approach. Tendulkar’s ability to modify his business plan in response to changing circumstances is similar to his ability to modify his style of play in response to match circumstances.
Financially speaking, Kissht’s parent company, OnEMi Technologies Pvt Ltd, had a 47% increase in net profit to INR 95.5 Cr in the fiscal year 2022–2023 (FY23) due to robust commercial growth.In FY22, the business generated a net profit of INR 62.6 Cr.
Krishnan Vishwanathan, Founder & ED of Kissht discusses his entrepreneurial journey, building s solution-oriented business and trends in the FinTech Industry with host Gautam Srinivasan.
Entrepreneurship is in the air! India has witnessed a surge in the number of startups over the last decade with an increasing tech-savvy population. The pandemic changed the way people consume services with the growth of digitization making everything accessible.
The “Crafting Bharat – A Startup Podcast Series” powered by AWS, and an initiative by NewsReach, in association with VCCircle, unlocks the secrets behind these successful entrepreneurs’ journeys aiming to equip aspiring entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts with invaluable insights. The podcast series is hosted by Gautam Srinivasan, famed for hosting a diverse range of TV and digital programs, currently consulting editor at CNBC (India), CNN-News18, Forbes India, and The Economic Times.
India’s rapid adoption to digitization is opening new avenues for budding entrepreneurs, and intrigued and determined entrepreneur Krishnan Vishwanathan, Founder & ED of Kissht, is on a mission to make the borrowing experience of individuals seamless. In the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series, Vishwanathan talks about his entrepreneurial journey, building s solution-oriented business, and trends in the FinTech Industry.
Explore the tales of Indian startup founders’ transformation from dreams to reality, navigating challenges to seize opportunities through the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series.
Crafting Bharat, Episode 11 With Krishnan Vishwanathan, Founder & ED of Kissht
Segment 1: The Incubator
While you try to solve for A particular customer, you seem to have ended up solving for customers of many other segments. What does this blurring of lines indicate for how you approach your business now?
If I’m a new start-up today, starting with access to credit on a differentiator will fall by the wayside within six months, and therefore the answer must be something beyond that. For us the answer has been evolving from a product innovation standpoint, lending is one of the most commodity and a centuries-old product. Large institutions today would not even afford basic flexibility for a person to choose his own loan amount, repayment schedule, repayment flexibility if he wants weekly or monthly. I mean these are basic things we started on day one. The segment we started with I’m not talking about the affluent segment I am talking about the segment we started with a lot of people who are irregular salaried and small business owners.
How do you survive and manage to stand out from the pack?
When you put risk and your customers first, I think the solutions start appearing in front of you. The drawback for some of these things are we’ve probably grown slower than some of our peers. I know a couple of organizations started after us technically on paper valuation they’re ahead of us. It doesn’t bother us because we know we are here for the long term. We are here to create an institution like Infosys and TCS. Something that will outlive us and I think that approach is unit economics-based fundamentals not chasing undue growth and keeping customers first.
How do you view GenAI helping you with this big opportunity? What are the next-level use cases that you see GenAI delivering for Ring?
GenAI is a very wide canvas, and I am not an expert, but I’ll tell you where we are focusing on with GenAI today in the company. We are today focusing on two things; one is mass customization and improving interaction with the customer. Ring is a culmination of saying how do I blend payments and lending into one platform which is very seamless to the customer. The idea being that we want to be a one stop solution to the customer.
Segment 2: The Accelerator
Take us through the highlights of your funding journey.
There are two big highlights. First, all our early-stage investors continued to remain with us and in fact they have invested in the last round as well, which is a testament to the fact that they believe in us, our business model and our team. Second big highlight is that we have always chosen investors not for the capital but something more they bring, whether it is market connect or international peer exposure that they give us. That has really helped us remain and largely we have chosen investors who share the same long-term vision as us.
If existing lending products are viewed as digitized versions of their earlier analog experiences, What’s the second layer of innovation of a truly digital lending experience going to look like?
I am belaboring the point, but it must be menu-driven mass customization. It must be something that fits. Customization has happened in other industries and generally, people feel that it might not work in financial services, but it must be the way forward. I think the needs of specific customers are very different.
The startup ecosystem is continuously evolving with newer sectors growing with increasing internet penetration and digitization. The country’s steady growth and commitment to science and technology, is emphasizing technology-driven innovation in shaping India’s future.
Stay tuned to the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series as they bring you these inspirational entrepreneurs for insightful and candid discussions with Gautam Srinivasan.
RING(formerly known as Kissht) plans to utilize Trifecta Capital’s debt facility for on-lending and growing its balance sheet loan book.
Mumbai, 17th April 2024: RING (formerly known as Kissht), one of the leading consumer lending fintech companies in India raises INR 100 Crores in venture debt from Trifecta Capital, one of the largest venture debt players in the ecosystem. With this funding, Trifecta is extending its partnership with founders Krishnan Vishwanathan, Ranvir Singh, and the RING team, for a second time and with a larger cheque. The firm had first backed RING in early 2022 with a debt of Rs. 50 crores.
The company has built a scaled, digital-first consumer lending business with a focus on financial inclusion, offering personal credit to salaried and self-employed customers across Tier 1, Tier II, and Tier III cities. Equipped with an in-house NBFC license and with access to third-party balance sheets, RING has been on an incredible growth trajectory surpassing an AUM of Rs. 3,000 crores for the financial year ending March 31, 2024 and having served over 1 crore unique borrowers. RING will utilize the Trifecta debt facility for on-lending and growing its balance sheet loan book.
Since Trifecta’s first investment in RING, the company has grown the AUM and revenues multifold. Trifecta’s conviction in the company stems from the founders’ deep understanding of the lending segment, their ability to tap capital sources across market cycles and successfully steer the business from small ticket lending to larger, medium to longer tenure loans, controlled CAC and high customer retention ratios in the business while managing loan APRs and portfolio credit quality safely within the regulatory benchmarks.
Quote from Abhijit Joshi, Director, Venture Debt at Trifecta Capital
“We are excited to further our commitment to RING (Formerly known as KISSHT), with our top-up debt investment of Rs. 100 crores in the company this year. RING, led by a robust founding and management team, has demonstrated that a consumer lending business can be built at a meaningful scale, despite a highly dynamic regulatory environment and variances in supply of capital. RING has achieved all this while maintaining strong unit economics and keeping credit costs under check”
Quote from the founder Krishnan Vishwanathan
“Building upon our recent achievements, we’re delighted to announce our renewed partnership with Trifecta Capital for the second time. OnEMi Technologies Pvt Ltd, the parent company of RING, has seen a remarkable 100% growth in AUM in FY24 and boasting a subscriber base of over 10 million. This underscores our commitment to excellence and innovation, evident in our vast network of 1.2 lakhs+ partners and the fact that over 90% of our business comes from repeat customers. Our platform’s seamless accessibility and efficient solutions drive us forward in the fintech sector. RING’S continued pursuit of innovation-led growth and dedication to customer experience is balanced by our unerring focus on unit economics and risk quality which is borne out by strong financial fundamentals.
This infusion of venture debt from Trifecta Capital not only validates our success but also provides the financial flexibility needed to further our mission of promoting financial inclusion across India. Together, we are poised to redefine the future of finance and empower millions towards a brighter, more inclusive tomorrow.”
About Trifecta Capital
Trifecta Capital is India’s leading alternate financing platform for startups across their life cycle through its three offerings – venture debt, growth equity, and financial solutions. With tailor-made financing solutions, Trifecta Capital serves market leaders and category creators spanning domains like B2B, Consumer Services, Consumer brands, E-commerce, Mobility, EdTech, AgriTech, FinTech, CleanTech, Software, and Healthcare.
Trifecta Capital has raised nearly INR 5,000 crores across three Venture Debt Funds and one Growth Stage Equity Fund over the last 9 years. It has also built a customized technology and advisory platform with cumulative managed capital of more than INR 13,000 crores to date, to support fast-growing startups. Since its inception, Trifecta Capital has made venture debt investments of nearly INR 5,000 crores across 175+ unique businesses including 20+ unicorns, and aims to be the financial partner of choice for leading new economy businesses in India.
Trifecta Capital’s venture debt portfolio of companies has cumulatively raised USD 13.5 Bn of equity and is cumulatively valued at USD 67 Bn. The firm has a high-quality team of professionals across its offices in all the major hubs of start-ups i.e. Bengaluru, Mumbai, and NCR. Trifecta Capital also won the IVCA award for Best Overall Performance in the Venture Debt Category earlier this year.
About RING
RING, a consumer-first, consumer credit app launched by OnEMi technologies, offers long- term and short-term loans. Customers can avail of multi-tenured loans of up to Rs.5 lakhs at the lowest interest rates and flexible repayment options. RING also offers flexibility to make both online and offline payments. Customers can use RING to pay for transactions, pay bills and pay through UPI. RING also has over 10 lakh merchants that help them acquire customers across the country. The company has built a robust loyalty and rewards program for consumers to improve customer stickiness.
About KISSHT
KISSHT is a financial technology platform that enables instant, seamless credit for consumers to make purchases at digital points of sale (online and offline). Established in 2015, KISSHT is a generation next financial technology company that strategically helps individuals to enhance their borrowing capacities. They have partnered with non-banking financial institutions and created an ecosystem to facilitate easy loans for our customers.
Today they have networked with 3000+ offline merchants and 50+ online stores in about 40 cities PAN India.
About ONEMi Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
ONEMi Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd. came into existence in the year 2015, intending to open up new vistas in consumer credit financing for online as well as offline purchases using the latest technology as an aid. Their constant efforts to financially empower our customers led them to be present across various segments of business like Online Purchase Loan, Personal Loan, and our newest offering – “Small Business Loans.” It is engaged in merchant acquisition / tie-ups, development of credit gateway technology, assessing the creditworthiness of the customers. Onemi Technology uses its proprietary software, algorithm, and credit marketplace platform for provisioning instant consumer loans through our financing partners.
Nitin Konde
