Bengaluru-based fintech KreditBee has entered the unicorn club after raising $280 million in a pre-IPO funding round, which values the consumer lending startup at $1.5 billion. The round was led by Motilal Oswal Alternates, along with Hornbill Capital and Dragon Funds. Moreover, existing investors such as Premji Invest and Advent International participated in the round, while WhiteOak Capital and A.P. Moller Holding also joined the investment.
With this latest infusion, KreditBee’s total funding has reached approximately $540 million. Notably, this funding round stands as the second-largest deal of 2026, following Neysa, which raised $1.2 billion earlier this year.
Importantly, the round includes $80 million in secondary transactions. The company plans to utilize the fresh capital to scale its credit business, particularly focusing on newer verticals such as secured lending and MSME financing.
“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 said on April 7.
Founded in 2018 by Madhusudan E, Vivek Veda, and Karthikeyan Krishnaswamy, the company had earlier raised $145 million and $100 million in 2021 and 2023, respectively.
Financially, KreditBee reported a revenue of Rs 2,700 crore and a net profit of Rs 473 crore in FY25, highlighting its strong growth trajectory. Meanwhile, the fintech is currently merging its technology entity with its non-banking financial company (NBFC) arm as it prepares for an initial public offering (IPO) within 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.
Operationally, the company has facilitated more than 60 million loans and reported assets under management (AUM) of around Rs 15,000 crore in FY26. This reflects a growth of 43–44 percent compared to Rs 10,100 crore AUM recorded in FY25.
Over the past few years, KreditBee has significantly diversified its portfolio. It has expanded into secured lending, including loans against property, two-wheeler financing, and MSME loans. As a result, its secured lending AUM has already reached Rs 1,000 crore, while MSME lending stands at Rs 500 crore.
In terms of customer behavior, KreditBee’s average loan ticket size is around Rs 60,000, whereas first-time borrowers typically begin with loans of Rs 20,000. Furthermore, the platform receives nearly 70,000 new loan applications daily, although it approves only about 10 percent of them. Alongside lending, the company also offers value-added services such as credit report solutions and UPI-based products.
Additionally, KreditBee has built strong traction not only in metropolitan cities but also across Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets, underscoring the rising adoption of digital lending solutions across India.
KreditBee’s latest funding round reinforces investor confidence in India’s digital lending ecosystem. As the company moves closer to its IPO and continues expanding into secured and MSME lending, it is well-positioned to capture a larger share of the rapidly evolving fintech market.
