Lentra, a startup in the field of cloud lending, said in a press release that it has successfully received $27 million as part of an extended Series B round of funding. The round was headed by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), located in Tokyo, and Dharana Capital, an investment firm.
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) business received $60 million in the previous series B financing round that was launched in November of last year. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and SIG Venture Capital, together with participation from Citi Ventures, provided the funding for this round.
Through its Ganesha Fund for Indian Entrepreneurs, MUFG Bank has made an investment in the fledgling business. This transaction marks the first time that MUFG Bank and MUFG Innovation Partners (MUIP), a corporate venture capital firm affiliated with the MUFG Group, have collaborated on an investment. Through this partnership, Lentra will get assistance in identifying potential synergies across the larger group, which may include strategic partner banks located in Southeast Asia.
“This partnership (with Lentra) affirms our commitment to supporting digital innovation in India and its expansion to other geographies,” said Shashank Joshi, deputy CEO of MUFG India.
“We have been scaling at a fast pace and this extended round is a strategic step towards fueling our ambition of empowering lenders globally. We are very excited that MUFG Bank and Dharana Capital are getting added to our cap table alongside our existing marquee investors like BVP, Citi, HDFC and SIG,” said D Venkatesh, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Lentra.
The business has introduced 1LMS, a loan management system that provides lenders with the ability to meet the requirements of billions of borrowers in a manner that is both rapid and accurate. The cloud lending startup, which was established in 2019 by D. Venkatesh and Ankur Handa, makes the claim that it has provided its services to over 60 different financial institutions and handled over $27 billion worth of loan applications on its platform.
After establishing subsidiaries and boosting go-to-market (GTM), the firm has also expanded its activities to Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the United States.
