ZestMoney plans to be profitable in 6 months

ZESTMONEY IS ON track to hit profitability within 3-6 months and will raise funds through an internal round from existing investors in the next few weeks, a top executive said.

- SALMAN SH & AJAY RAMANATHAN

"Once we hit profitability, the need for funds will not arise. We will then be sustainable like any other company and will be completely on our own," Mandar Satpute, chief banking officer, ZestMoney, told FE. The funding will be purely an equity round and will not have any convertible structures.

The fintech firm is said to be finalising a new investment round from its existing shareholders, including Quona Capital, Zip, Omidyar Network India, Flourish VC and Scarlet Digital.

To ensure business continuity, ZestMoney plans to operate as a lending service provider (LSP) partnering with banks and NBFCs to write out loans rather than lending directly from its balance sheet, Satpute added.

According to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) recent digital lending guidelines, an LSP is an agent of a bank or a non-bank lenders that carries out one or more of the lender's functions like customer acquisition, underwriting support, pricing support, servicing, monitoring, recovery of specific loan or loan portfolio on behalf of these lenders.