Indian debt collection startup raises $50 million from Accel, Westbridge

By Alex Gabriel Simon

Credgenics, an online service that helps banks collect on debt, raised $50 million in a funding round led by existing backers Accel and Westbridge Capital that tripled its valuation to $340 million.
 

The Indian startup will use the capital to expand to Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam and Indonesia that share characteristics such as penetration with India’s credit market, Chief Executive Officer Rishabh Goel told Bloomberg News. That valuation is up more than three-fold from its last financing in 2021.

Credgenics helps banks and financial institutions maintain customer data, set automatic reminders and contact borrowers through the phone. It also processes online payments and has systems to manage legal procedures in case of defaults. It handles mostly retail loans along with debt from smaller enterprises.

Lenders are looking for efficient ways to communicate with borrowers and collect payments, a task that becomes more onerous in countries such as India that are experiencing rising credit growth. Personal loans in India grew 21% in June against last year.

“We can’t expect call center operators to be able to keep track and collect all these new loans being created,” said Anand Agrawal, Credgenics’s chief product and technology officer. “We are using AI to predict where the chances of delinquencies are higher, and where intervention would be helpful.”

The company is also testing use cases for products that would help in collection of insurance premiums, and would later explore utility bill payments as well, he added.