EarlySalary.Com to raise $6mn,eyes expansion to smaller cities

Firm offers loans, akin to salary advance, in Rs 10,000-1,00,000 range for 7-30 days at about 2% interest

EarlySalary.Com, a fintech startup that offers personal loans, will raise $5-6 million in the coming months as it looks to expand its presence across cities like Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Jaipur.

The Pune-based firm offers loans ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs one lakh for a tenure of 7 to 30 days, operating on similar lines of salary advance, and charges an interest of about 2 per cent.

"Being broke at the end of the month is a common problem, and we help provide a small bridge loan to tide over that short difficult period till your salary reaches the account," EarlySalary.Com co-founder and CEO Akshay Mehrotra told PTI.

The app-based lending product has an algorithm-based underwriting and robo decisioning system.

It uses social algorithm (Facebook) and machine intelligence to enable the app make the loan lending decision, he added.

"We have already started offering loans in Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and have recently forayed into Delhi-NCR. In the next few months, we will expand to Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijaywada and Jaipur," Mehrotra said.

Within the past five months, the company has received 1.5 lakh downloads. "We have a very good traction. In July, we would have disbursed about 2,000 loans," he said.

He added that the company is targeting the young salaried professionals who need instant cash or have a loan requirement but may not have credit instruments available.

"For our next phase of growth, we are looking at raising funds to the tune of $5-6 million...By March, we expect to see about 50,000 loans being given out, which is about Rs 2 crore of deployed capital," he said.

The company had raised $1.5 million seed capital, led by Ashok Agarwal of Transcorp Group last year.

Mehrotra, who has been associated with brands like Future Retail, PolicyBazaar.Com, Big Bazaar and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co, said a major chunk of Earlysalary.Com's users are from the technology sector.

"We are also working on partnering corporates where they direct their employees to us for their advance requirements," he said adding that it has already partnered 42 enterprises.