Fibe eyes upskilling space for lending even as ed-tech faces crunch

Even as edtech giant Byju's problem casts its shadow on the educational technology sector, financial technology (fintech) players are not giving up on the sector yet. Digital lending start-up Fibe is eyeing an opportunity to lend to young professionals in the digital upskilling category, Akshay Mehrotra, co-founder and CEO at Fibe, told Business Standard in an interaction.

"We lend to young working professionals, and the age group of 21 to 28 years is our sweet spot which also is the target audience for digital skilling. The company offers (borrowers) three segments; premium, which caters to a ticket size of Rs 2-4 lakh, mid which caters to Rs 1.2-2 lakh and specialised skill with a ticket size between Rs 40,000 to Rs 1.2 lakh," Mehrotra said. 

The company, which averages around Rs 40 crore in monthly topline sales in the category, partners with upskilling platforms to lend credit to consumers. Mehrotra said that the company wants to target the audience from upskilling platforms such as UpGrad, Jigsaw, Hero Vired, and Jaro. 

"Let's say a partner has a 23-year-old coming in who wants to do a course. He may be willing to do a course, but can he afford it? So, we become the affordability partner. We are able to give the understanding if the customer can afford it. That's what our eligibility check at the back end is. It also allows the partner's marketing to get more efficient," Mehrotra added. 

The Indian ed-tech space has seen the worst of the funding winter as ed-tech majors, including Byju's and Unacademy, are experiencing troubles. Byjus incurred losses of Rs 4,588 crore in FY21 and initiated a fresh round of layoffs a few weeks ago, taking the total number of employees it handed pink slips to 3,500. Unacademy, too, reported a net loss of Rs 2,693 crore and laid off 350 employees in November 2022, Business Standard reported in March this year. 

But Mehrotra is not concerned about this negative news. "We are clear in the segment that we are in. We are only into digital skilling where there's a working professional involved. We are not doing undergrad courses, physical university, or the K-12 (kindergarten to class 12) category. K-12 is going through its own struggle with the issues happening across the category with players going kaput. So, the area that we are focused on is a specific niche one," he said.