Lending startup Progcap raises Rs7 crore funding

Lending startup Progcap which caters to last mile businesses has raised Rs 7 crore in seed funding led by growx ventures, a leading B2B- and deep tech-focused early-stage venture fund. Contrarian Drishti, along with angel investors Somak Ghosh and Abhishek Dalmia also participated in the round.

Growx has invested in over 25 companies, including Doxper, Fynd, Locus, Mad Street Den among others.

Founded by Pallavi Shrivastava and Himanshu Chandra in 2017, Progcap provides access to working capital to retailers in Tier II, III and IV towns, where retailers typically face challenges in accessing capital for their businesses. The company claims that over half of its customers are new to the credit ecosystem.

The company's founders in a statement said, “Our vision is to broaden the opportunities for businesses in the last mile. There are over 20 million retailers in India who are unplugged from formal financing. We are working towards building a platform to integrate these businesses into the real economy.”

Indian digital lending industry is poised to grow dramatically with a potential market size of 100 billion dollars by 2023, according to a BCG report. Further, according to NASSCOM things will continue to look up with Indian fintech market potentially touching $2.4 billion by 2020.