Snapdeal to help sellers secure working capital

Under the 'Capital Assist' programme, the e-commerce major will help small businesses to connect with funding partners

Homegrown e-commerce major Snapdeal on Tuesday launched an initiative to help sellers on its platform get easy access to working capital to help them expand their business.

Under the 'Capital Assist' programme, Snapdeal will help small businesses to connect with funding partners (banks and non-banking financial companies) to help in meeting working capital requirements as they scale their business online.

"Enabling SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) to do business online is one of our key focus areas and Capital Assist will go further in strengthening this. It is while working with our sellers that we realised the issues they face while raising capital to fuel growth in their businesses," co-founder and chief operating officer Rohit Bansal said.

This initiative will help them overcome this challenge to a large extent, he added.

Snapdeal currently has around 50,000 sellers on board and it aims to reach the one-lakh mark by April next year.

"Banks and NBFCs can participate in this platform to provide seamless and low-cost financing to sellers on Snapdeal depending on their current and future business requirements," he said.

The eligibility criteria for sellers to avail this service will be clearly defined by the company along with the funding partners (bank/NBFC) on Capital Assist, he added.

In order to ensure that Snapdeal sellers have significant flexibility, customised financing options will be offered to them based on their business category and requirement.