Fintech lender KreditBee enters unicorn club with $280 million pre-IPO funding at $1.5 billion valuation

Bengaluru-based fintech KreditBee enters the Unicorn club with a $280 million pre-IPO round, valuing the consumer lending startup at $1.5 billion.

Led by Motilal Oswal Alternates, Hornbill Capital and MUFG-backed Dragon Funds, the round saw participation from existing investors Premji Invest and Advent International, among others. WhiteOak Capital and A.P. Moller Holding also invested in the round.

With the latest round, the company’s total funding is around $540 million. The large capital infusion makes it the second-largest funding round of 2026, after Artificial Intelligence infrastructure firm Neysa’s $1.2 billion funding announced earlier this year.

The round, which includes $80 million in secondaries, will be deployed to expand the credit business, especially the newer verticals - secured and MSME lending.

Stability getting rewarded

“Our risk management has been very stable even during big events like COVID or the down cycles like the MFI (Micro Finance Institutions) crisis in 2024. That is what got rewarded, and we got good interest from investors, almost 3x the demand,” co-founder and CEO Madhusudan E told Moneycontrol on April 7.

Founded in 2018 by Madhusudan, Vivek Veda, and Karthikeyan Krishnaswamy, the company has previously raised $145 million and $100 million in 2021 and 2023.

KreditBee reported Rs 2,700 crore in revenue and Rs 473 crore in net profit during FY 25.

The fintech is in the process of merging its tech entity and non banking financial company (NBFC) before looking at an initial public offering (IPO) during the current financial year.

“This is the last private round before the IPO. The listing was always for us a function of the merger process, which we are doing now. We expect to complete the process in the next couple of months,” Madhusudan said.

High growth, new verticals

The company has facilitated over 60 million loans and has assets under management of around Rs 15,000 crore in FY 26, a growth of 43-44 percent over the Rs 10,100 crore AUM it reported in FY 25.

Over the last couple of years, KreditBee has expanded its offerings to loan against property or secured lending, two-wheeler loans and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) loans. The secured lending AUM has already touched Rs 1,000 crore, while the MSME lending has reached Rs 500 crore.

KreditBee’s average ticket size is usually around Rs 60,000, while the first-time borrowers start with Rs 20,000 loans.

The company gets around 70,000 new loan requests every day, with 10 percent of the applications getting approved. In addition, KreditBee provides value-added services such as credit report solutions and UPI-based offerings.

According to the company, it has built strong traction across metros as well as Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, reflecting the growing adoption of digital credit solutions.