Minko, a retail fintech platform that provides credit facilities to small kirana and retail shop owners, has raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round led by LC Nueva AIF, an India-domiciled category II alternative investment fund, and LetsVenture.
The company announced it now offers distributors a B2B payments stack that is integrated with its flagship product, Minko Credit, thereby giving offline retailers and distributors a comprehensive tech platform to grow their business.
Founded by Sanket and Sanmati Shendure, Minko started product development in January 2021.
“The digital payment industry has seen an exponential rise during the pandemic. The growing trust in digital payments has also created an opportunity for us to accelerate the financial inclusion of underserved offline retailers and businesses. We expect the demand for our short-term credit product Minko Credit to increase manifold, as we continue to bridge the largely unmet credit gap of $250 billion for this segment,” Sanket said.
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Apart from Minko Credit, the platform added three new products within the last six months — Minko Invoices, Minko QR Code, and Minko Gold. With the digital B2B invoice payment stack embedded with credit, the company aims to move online a large segment of the multibillion-dollar ‘retailer-to-distributor’ payments, which mainly happens via cash and cheque.
The company plans to utilise the raised capital to hire more talent, especially in its tech and sales teams, and expand across India.