"WE PLAN TO SERVE TWO LAKH MSMEs BY 2025"

In this interview, Kinara Capital’s Founder and CEO, Hardika Shah, shares the story of her company’s origin and emphasises the role MSMEs play in the nation’s future. She expresses commitment to doubling the outreach of their fintech services for MSMEs. Further, Shah also delves into the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs when and discusses her experiences as a female leader in a maledominated sector.

- Dipika Lalwani

Could you share your journey in the fintech industry and the foundation of Kinara Capital? What was your aim when you started the company? 

My aim in founding Kinara Capital was to drive financial inclusion of small business entrepreneurs in the micro-small-medium enterprise (MSME) sector in India, and I am proud to share that we have not once wavered from this mission. We have disbursed over 1,00,000 business loans to date, with manufacturing MSMEs constituting more than half of our portfolio today.

After many years of working internationally in management consulting, I observed on a visit to India that, despite India’s economic liberalisation, small business entrepreneurs continued to grapple with access to formal credit. To see this years later, hit a nerve for me as I was exposed to entrepreneurship very early in life as my mother ran a few small businesses, and I had seen the struggle upfront.

While studying at Columbia Business School, I decided to focus on finding a solution and built risk assessment methodologies that would address the common challenges that MSME entrepreneurs face: difficulty pledging property collateral, cumbersome processes, and a lack of personalised customer support. With a blended approach, Kinara set out to address these unique challenges by combining tech-enabled processes with a feet-on-the-street presence. The use of AI and ML has made us confident in extending business loans without property collateral to MSMEs, who can easily purchase machinery, raw materials, or other business expansion goals.

I wanted to create a sustainable solution that would bridge the MSME credit gap and help small business entrepreneurs realise their untapped potential. Kinara Capital, I believe we have done just that.