Retail

Flipkart’s ex-CTO allies with entrepreneur Raj Vattikuti to start credit firm


BENGALURU: Former Flipkart chief technology officer Ravi Garikipati has launched a financial services and micro-credit startup along with serial entrepreneur Raj Vattikuti, who in 2007 had sold his company Covansys for $1.5 billion to Computer Sciences Corp.

The duo has seeded the venture, DAVINTA, with Rs 140 crore of personal money. It already holds an NBFC licence, with disbursed loans of Rs 50 crore.

DAVINTA provides short-term credit of up to 12 months to underserved families and MSMEs, including rural women, urban bluecollar workers like factory workers and nano entrepreneurs. The company is focused on enabling sustainable financial inclusion at the bottom of the pyramid, by building a livelihood ecosystem that connects borrowers to both input partners like skill development agencies and NGOs and output partners such as buyers and marketplaces. In eight months since its launch, DAVINTA has disbursed loans to about 10,000 customers, 85% of who are women.

“We have a low-cost operating model that is tech-driven, paperless, cashless and presence-less to be able to deliver to the last-mile disbursal and collections via a network of small franchisees,” Garikipati said. “We have built a unique underwriting model that in ‘near’ real-time creates specific customer profiles based on a list of variables.”

India has the second-largest labour force in the world at 500 million, 90% of which is engaged across rural livelihoods, urban blue-collar and micro-enterprise based jobs, and are denied access to basic financial services, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators.





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