The KreditBee Story: How Madhusudan Ekambaram Built a Lending Empire for Middle India
A deep dive into the journey of Madhusudan Ekambaram, the founder of KreditBee. Discover his contrarian philosophy, unique strategies, and the metrics behind building one of India's largest and most p
In a startup ecosystem often fixated on blitz-scaling and chasing the coveted "unicorn" tag, Madhusudan Ekambaram, the Co-founder and CEO of KreditBee, offers a refreshingly contrarian perspective. His focus has always been on something more fundamental and enduring: building a sustainable, profitable, and credible financial institution. This philosophy has become the bedrock of KreditBee, a digital lending giant that has disbursed over ₹21,000 crores in loans in the last year alone, primarily by unlocking the credit appetite of a demographic often overlooked by traditional banks—Middle India.
We explored his entire journey, from his early career insights to the nitty-gritty of scaling a regulated fintech, in a candid conversation on the Founder Thesis podcast.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
The Architect: From Corporate Pro to Fintech Founder 🏗️
Madhusudan Ekambaram’s path to entrepreneurship wasn't a leap of faith taken straight out of college. It was a calculated move built on years of deep corporate experience. Armed with a Bachelor of Engineering from the prestigious National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) and an MBA from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, he spent over a decade honing his skills in the technology sector.
A pivotal stint was at Huawei, where he headed the e-commerce vertical for nine to ten countries across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. While managing the P&L and driving online sales for the global brand, he encountered a recurring bottleneck.
"I was convinced that sales would get an uptick of ten, twenty percent the moment credit is available on the store. When I started talking to the large lenders, their real apprehension was 'how do I underwrite people whom I have not even seen once?'"
This gap—the massive potential of digital credit and the reluctance of traditional players to embrace it—was the spark. Madhusudan realized the problem to be solved wasn't just providing capital, but completely re-imagining the lending process for a digital-first world.
The Entrepreneurial Leap: The Genesis of KreditBee 🐝
In 2016, Madhusudan co-founded Finnovation Tech Solutions. The initial venture, KrazyBee, was a masterstroke in strategic focus. Instead of targeting the entire market, they began by providing small loans to a niche but digitally native demographic: students.
This wasn't just about finding an easy entry point. It was a real-world lab for perfecting their product and risk models. In one of the most unique go-to-market strategies, they actively encouraged their first users to find flaws.
"We incentivized students heavily. We said, 'You please break our system. If you break the system, the product will be free for you.' This student involvement really helped us in making our app much more robust before we took it to the outside market."
This process was crucial for building their fraud-mitigation engine, which Madhusudan believes is fifty percent of the underwriting challenge. After refining their model in this controlled environment, the company rebranded and expanded its operations as KreditBee in 2018, opening its doors to young professionals, salaried individuals, and the broader Indian population.
Blueprint for Scale: How KreditBee Grew 🚀
KreditBee’s hypergrowth is built on a sophisticated and multi-pronged strategy that goes far beyond just a sleek app.
The "Skin-in-the-Game" Co-lending Model
Instead of solely relying on their own capital or acting as a simple lead generator, KreditBee pioneered a "co-lending" model. They partner with over 10 renowned financial institutions, including names like the Piramal Group and Tata Group. In this arrangement, KreditBee's own NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company) funds a portion of every loan (typically 20%) alongside its partner. This "skin-in-the-game" approach gives partners immense confidence in KreditBee's underwriting quality, unlocking a massive and stable supply of capital essential for scaling.
The Data Moat: Underwriting "Middle India"
KreditBee’s true competitive advantage lies in its ability to assess the creditworthiness of individuals with limited or no formal credit history. While they started by looking at alternate data, their moat has deepened with time and scale. The platform has underwritten over 40 million customers, feeding its proprietary risk engines with an unparalleled quantum of data.
This allows them to build multiple, nuanced scorecards that go beyond a simple bureau score, including:
Anti-Fraud Scorecards: To detect impersonation and other digital fraud attempts.
Income Estimators: To assess the cash flow of self-employed individuals who may not have formal income proofs.
Willingness-to-Pay Scorecards: To analyze behavioral patterns and predict repayment discipline.
This technological prowess is what allows them to confidently serve "Middle India," with more than 77% of their customers hailing from non-metro cities.
KreditBee by the Numbers 📊
The scale KreditBee operates at is staggering:
Disbursals: Over ₹21,000 crores in loans disbursed in FY24.
User Base: Trusted by over 7 crore (70 million) Indians, with 1.1 crore (11 million) individuals having taken a loan.
Active Customers: The platform currently has about 4.2 million active borrowers.
Revenue Growth: The NBFC arm, KrazyBee Services, reported a 95% surge in operating revenue to ₹1,399.2 crore in FY24.
Profitability: Net profit for the NBFC arm more than tripled, reaching ₹200.3 crore in FY24. The consolidated entity also turned profitable in FY23.
Product Mix: The business is diversified, with personal loans making up ~75%, the 'KreditBee Card' ~22%, and e-voucher based BNPL ~3% of the disbursals.
The Funding Journey 💰
To fuel its growth, KreditBee has successfully raised approximately $362.65 million from a marquee list of investors who share their long-term vision. This includes:
Series C: A $75 million round led by Premji Invest and Mirae Asset.
Series D: A larger round of over $200 million, bringing on board global giants like Advent International, MUFG Bank, and Motilal Oswal Private Equity.
Key Investors: The cap table includes Advent International, Premji Invest, Motilal Oswal, MUFG Bank, Mirae Asset, NewQuest Capital Partners, and Matrix Partners India.
The Founder's Philosophy: Credibility Over Unicorns 🧘
What truly sets Madhusudan apart is his leadership philosophy. In an industry of hype, he is grounded in the fundamentals of the lending business.
"The credibility of the cap table becomes critical... For an NBFC, these attributes are more important than lofty valuations and a unicorn tag. If I am good, then I should be rated good by a tough evaluator."
This focus on building an institution on the principles of trust, governance, and transparency is why he has actively supported industry-led Self-Regulatory Organizations (SROs) and views the RBI's evolving guidelines as a positive step towards creating a healthier ecosystem. His ambition is not just to build a successful startup, but a "traditional blue-chip financial services company" for the digital age, with a potential IPO being a part of that long-term vision.
Madhusudan Ekambaram's journey with KreditBee is a powerful testament to the fact that in the world of finance, sustainable success is built not on fleeting trends, but on a foundation of trust, technology, and an unwavering focus on solving real-world problems for the masses.
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