1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2022: OneNDF, New Delhi, India

OneNDF is a small business loan marketplace that handles all the loan requirements of SMBs and specializes in Secured Loans. It started off as an offline loan marketplace in 2013. It launched its video powered loan marketplace in August 2021 to provide SMBs access to credit facilities through technology. It has 95 lenders and has generated revenue of over $100k through the platform in just 4 months. 

OneNDF was founded in 2013 by Nitin Khandelwal who has significant domain expertise in the retail lending sector with over seven years’ experience of working at the Standard Chartered Bank and eight years’ experience of running an offline loan marketplace. 

While dealing with customers at the bank, Nitin noticed that customers in need of funds would accept any deal that was offered to them. He realized that there is an opportunity for customers to be made aware of their right to negotiate the terms, loan pricing, tenure etc. 

He wanted to create a symbiotic ecosystem and a transparent and secured platform to offer the last mile connectivity to the borrower. OneNDF offers loans against property, working capital facilities, and unsecured business loans. The customers he took on at the very beginning of the business eight years back are still with him and keep consulting him for their borrowing needs. OneNDF has successfully processed over $266M in Business Loans in the last 8 years in New Delhi, India.

When Nitin founded the company, it was a niche segment with immense opportunity. Soon, several offline loan marketplaces / mortgage brokers like Mymoneymantra, Andromeda, and Paisa Bazaar mushroomed. Currently, its competitors in the Secured Loans segment include CreditEnable, Indify, CredAvenue, and Myloancare.

The main differentiator for OneNDF is its focus on the SMB Secured Loan segment, which has a high barrier to entry because of the cumbersome and complex loan process. Unsecured Business Loans or Personal Loans have a shorter turnaround time (TAT) for disbursement and revenue generation while Secured Loans have a longer TAT of 60 to 90 days. OneNDF currently has a widespread ecosystem of over 70 banks and financial institutions.

The OneNDF team acts as extended CFOs of the clients. Their USP is that they understand the need for funds, the urgency, and get completely involved in each transaction. To provide such high involvement, there is the need to create a customer journey and a tool that has the requisite customer information required for a loan sanction. This journey can also be used by each of the stakeholders as a reference point for future transactions. 

Post the pandemic, the entire landscape of secured funding has changed. Loan applications are being submitted online, and the TAT has reduced to 10-15 days for secured loans. Video based conversations are the new normal and in-person documentation and interactions are fading away. In August 2021, OneNDF launched its platform for video enabled loan marketplace. 

The OneNDF platform’s value proposition is its reliability in delivering loan sanctions within the committed time, transparency, and trust for repeat business.

OneNDF generates revenue through referral payouts of 1.5% of the amount disbursed for Secured Funds and 2.5% for Unsecured funds from the banks/FIs. Its top target segments are SMEs with minimum $100K turnover. Tele calling is its primary model of acquiring new borrowers.

There are over 64M registered SME in India and 12% of these are in North India. In a typical business journey, each business needs funds once a year for about nine years. Each case has an approx. revenue of $3333 and a Borrower Lifetime Value of $26,600. The cost of acquiring a borrower is $667. The bottom up TAM for pan India is $1.7 trillion and North India is $204 billion. 

The business has been bootstrapped thus far. OneNDF is now ready for its first infusion of capital. The company expects to stick to its capital efficient roots and deliver $100M in revenues within 5-6 years with a total capital raise of $20 million over 2-3 rounds.

While OneNDF fully expects to become a Unicorn, it aims to do so with a capital efficient strategy, and with a strong focus on fundamentals.

Photo Credit: Credit Commerce from Pixabay