mumbai newage lender incred finance promoted by former deutsche banker bhupinder singh and backed by his former boss anshu jain has kicked off lending after raising close to rs 600 crore of equity the largest chunk of funding has come from founder singh followed by rajnan pai of the manipal groupon thursday the company announced that it had received rs 25 crore funding from siddharth parekhfounded paragon partners growth fund1 given the strong capital base the company which extended its first loan last month aims to provide rs 3000 crore worth of consumer and sme loans by march 2018in an interview to toi singh said that the companys business focus has been shaped to tap into entrepreneurial and aspirational young india weve kicked off with sme financing to cater to entrepreneurs in consumer finance affordable mortgages and education we will leverage nontraditional data to make credit decisions we will also leverage technology to improve the customer experience of making the loan application process simple and fast said singhwhile there are fintech lenders which use technology to reach out to borrowers incred is using its own balance sheet to lend which enables it to grow quickly the company had last year acquired instapaisa which provides the platform for automated lending and plans to launch appbased loans increds target customers are creditworthy loan seekers who have been ignored by lenders for lack of data lending to the nearprime thinfile and newtocredit segment presents massive opportunities this is the segment we aim to operate in which strongly aligns with our vision of furthering financial inclusion in india said singh increds strategy is to leverage technology and partnerships by having last mile strategic partnerships with entities that have the ability to provide widespread access to customers such as property developers to fund new home buyers and test prep centres which help students go to the uswhile increds digital strategy was conceived over a year ago the impetus to digitisation provided by demonetisation has given the company a strong tailwind bhupinder said in the first phase incred is targeting the tier 1 and tier 2 cities in maharashtra gujarat rajasthan mp and karnataka we merged our teams regional familiarity with the geographic footprint of the governments smart city initiative to zeroin on these states said singh