Rajesh Panda, Co-founder, Techfino

Techfino, a tech-enabled non-banking financial company (NBFC), has raised ₹65 crore in funding from Stellaris Venture Partners and Saison Capital, the venture arm of Tokyo-listed financial company Credit Saison. The company will use this capital to expand its branch network, strengthen its technology platform, and scale its secured lending business focused on MSMEs.

Techfino secures ₹65 Crore from Stellaris Venture Partners and Saison Capital to scale the MSME lending business.

Techfino provides Loan Against Property (LAP) to MSMEs in Tier II and III cities. The company currently disburses loans through a branch-driven model with operations across Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. It also provides education loans through a B2B2C model by establishing partnerships with education service providers.

Founded in 2019 by Jayaprakash Patra (ex-ICICI Bank and ING), Rajesh Panda (ex-Standard Chartered), and Ratikant Satapathy (ex-Bajaj Finance), the company offers MSME loans with ticket sizes ranging from ₹8 to ₹12 lakh.

Rajesh Panda, Co-founder, Techfino, said, “Out of the 640 million registered MSMEs in India, 390 million are not part of the formal credit economy. This segment, especially in rural and semi-urban markets, generates an estimated quarterly demand of Rs 200,000 crore. With banks and large NBFCs showing limited presence in this segment, we are leveraging our deep understanding of risk, superior underwriting capability, efficient in-house collection infrastructure and robust technology platform to serve this large, underserved market.”

Ratikant Satapathy, Co-founder of Techfino, said, “At Techfino, we leverage a robust technology platform that we have internally developed from scratch. This platform integrates multiple external APIs to obtain and verify data critical for underwriting. This technology has resulted in higher efficiency, better data-driven risk assessment, and lower TAT.”

To date, Techfino has disbursed over 1 lakh loans and crossed Rs 200 crore in assets under management (AUM). The company aims to double its branches this year, scale disbursements and AUM, and build a secured lending business over the next 3-5 years.

(With inputs from bl intern Nethra Sailesh)

Published on June 18, 2025