Apollo Finvest (India) Ltd is a public listed Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) that provides a platform for fintechs to scale their digital lending products. The company claims to be the "AWS for Lending" as it offers a range of services such as loan management system, capital, compliance, regulation, credit automation, fraud detection, digital KYC, disbursements, collections, and asset reconstruction through modern RESTful APIs. The company aims to enable financial inclusion and innovation by making it possible for any company to become a distributor of financial products.
The company was incorporated in 1985 and has its registered office in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company's authorized share capital is INR 8.00 cr and the total paid-up capital is INR 3.73 cr as of September 2020. The company's revenue from operations for the year ended March 2020 was INR 4.29 cr, which increased by 28.6% from the previous year. The company's profit after tax for the same period was INR 1.67 cr, which increased by 34.7% from the previous year.
The company is led by Mikhil Innani, who is the Managing Director and CEO. He has over 10 years of experience in building products from scratch to scale. He has previously worked with Hotstar, CouponDunia, and PharmEasy. He holds a Master's degree in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor's degree from Mumbai University. The company's COO and Director is Diksha Nangia, who has a decade of experience in managing credit risk products and building financial models at scale. She has previously worked with HDFC Ltd. She holds an MBA in Finance from NMIMS and a Bachelor's degree from Mumbai University. She also holds a CFA Charter.
The company has partnered with over 50 fintechs across various segments such as neo banking, SME banking, debit cards, gift cards, P2P payments, marketplace payments, consumer loans, and SME loans. Some of the notable partners are Slice, ZestMoney, MoneyTap, Cashfree, BharatPe, Instamojo, and Khatabook. The company claims to have processed over 1 million loans worth over INR 1000 cr through its platform.
The company faces competition from other NBFCs that offer similar platforms for fintechs such as Capital Float, Lendingkart, InCred, FlexiLoans, and NeoGrowth. The company also faces regulatory challenges as the RBI has issued guidelines for co-lending model between NBFCs and banks, which may affect the business model of fintechs that rely on NBFCs for capital.
The company's strengths include its technology-driven platform that enables speed and flexibility for fintechs to launch and scale their lending products, its access to capital as a service that allows fintechs to leverage their equity base without diluting their cap table, its fully licensed NBFC status that takes care of every regulatory burden for fintechs, and its neutrality and customer experience focus that ensures that it does not compete with its partners or cross-sell or upsell any financial product to their customers.
The company's opportunities include the growing demand for digital lending products in India as more people seek access to formal credit through online channels, the increasing adoption of fintech solutions by SMEs and consumers as they look for convenience and affordability in financial services, the emergence of new segments and use cases for digital lending such as education loans, healthcare loans, travel loans, etc., and the potential for cross-border expansion as the company's platform can be used by fintechs in other markets.
The company's challenges include the high competition from other NBFCs and banks that offer similar or better platforms for fintechs, the regulatory uncertainty and compliance costs that may affect the profitability and scalability of digital lending products, the credit risk and fraud risk that may arise due to lack of physical verification or collateral in digital lending products, and the customer retention and loyalty issues that may arise due to low switching costs or high default rates in digital lending products.
The company's future plans include launching new products and services on its platform such as insurance products, wealth management products, credit cards, etc., enhancing its technology stack and data analytics capabilities to improve its underwriting and risk management processes, expanding its partner network and customer base across different segments and geographies, raising more capital from investors to fuel its growth and innovation initiatives, and exploring strategic partnerships or acquisitions with other players in the fintech ecosystem.
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