Advent-backed digital lender KreditBee has raised about $280 million in a Series E funding round, valuing the company at around $1.5 billion and marking its entry into the unicorn club.
The round, which makes KreditBee the third unicorn of 2026 and the first in the new fiscal year, was led by Motilal Oswal Alternates, Hornbill Capital, and MUFG-backed Dragon Funds, with participation from WhiteOak Capital, A.P. Moller Holding, and existing investors including Premji Invest and Advent International. The other two recently-crowned unicorns were fintech firm Juspay and AI cloud startup Neysa. KreditBee last raised a round in 2023 at $700 million in valuation.
Of the total funding, around $220 million is primary capital and about $60 million is secondary, allowing early investors like Alpine Capital, Mirae Asset Naver Asia Growth Fund and some employees to partially exit. “The majority of the capital will go into the company,” founder and chief executive Madhusudan Ekambaram said.
The latest fundraise comes at a time when large deals in the fintech lending space have been scarce. “Given the current global macro environment, raising such a large round is a strong validation of the company’s performance and investor confidence,” he added.
Mint had first reported in September that the company had hired bankers to raise over $100 million.
The company’s closest competitors Moneyview raised a $75 million cheque in 2024, while Fibe raised $35 million last year. The current round comes at a significantly higher size, underscoring renewed investor interest in the segment.
Expanding lending book
The company plans to deploy the fresh capital to expand its lending book. “The capital will largely be used to fund the NBFC (non-banking financial company) business and expand AUM (assets under management),” Ekambaram said.
KreditBee has seen strong growth in its AUM, closing FY25 with ₹10,200 crore and expected to end FY26 at around ₹14,700 crore. This growth has been driven largely by its core unsecured lending business. “Personal loans remain our core product and primary growth driver. Over 90% of disbursements still come from this segment,” the chief executive said.
“Growth in lending is not just about disbursement, it depends on strong risk management. That’s what gives us the confidence to scale,” he said. “Our credit cost has remained stable at around 3.5%, even through challenging cycles like covid and the recent MFI (microfinance institution) downturn. We are expecting to go even lower at 3.3%.”
While KreditBee has expanded into segments such as MSME lending, loan against property and vehicle loans, it is now also looking to enter adjacent financial services verticals.
“We may look at expanding into non-lending products such as mutual funds and insurance distribution. This is currently in the plan and could be rolled out over the next three to six months,” he said. “The idea is to offer a more comprehensive financial services platform, rather than making customers use multiple apps.”
“We already serve over 50 lakh active customers, which creates strong cross-sell opportunities across financial products,” he added.
On the technology front, the company is increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI). “We are using AI across three areas—operational efficiency, developer productivity, and improving customer journeys,” he said. “A large portion of customer interactions, including calls and support, is now handled through AI-led systems.”
Financially, the company has continued to scale steadily. “Revenue grew over 30% year-on-year, while profit grew over 50%,” he said, without sharing specific details.
Co-lending partnerships
Founded in 2016 by Ekambaram, Karthikeyan Krishnaswamy and Vivek Veda, KreditBee operates through its Reserve Bank of India-registered NBFC, KrazyBee Services Ltd, and has co-lending partnerships with over 10 financial institutions.
The company had last raised $200 million in a funding round led by US-based private equity firm Advent International in January 2023.
KreditBee’s plans for a new round come after the lending startup merged its two India entities—Finnovation Tech and KrazyBee—ahead of a public listing and paid around $100 million in tax to move its headquarters to India, Mint reported earlier.
Looking ahead, the company is preparing for a public listing. “We expect to be IPO-ready after the merger, and will time the listing based on market conditions—possibly later this year or early next year,” Ekambaram said.
In April 2025, Mint had reported that several fintech startups—especially those valued under $1 billion and often referred to as ‘soonicorns’—including Turtlemint, KreditBee and Kissht are eyeing a public listing, undeterred by market volatility or the lacklustre performance of some previous tech company listings. Since then, others like Moneyview have also joined the race, beefing up the lending startups pipeline.
Mint reported in August last year that Kissht had filed its draft red herring prospectus to raise up to ₹1,000 crore from the IPO. This for regulator Sebi’s nod in January this year.
To be sure, the IPO momentum in India has slowed down due to market volatility amid the West Asia war crisis.