CIOInsider India Magazine
Profintech: Marketplace Centric Financial Ecosystem That Empowers MSMEs with Business Financing Solutions
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Sandeep Kunkunuru, Co-Founder & CTO &
Ravi Tanniru, Founder & CEO
Despite their invaluable contribution to the economy and employment intensity, MSMEs still struggle to get financing from traditional financing channels. PROFINTECH, led by Ravi Tanniru,Founder & CEO, and Sandeep Kunkunuru, Co-founder & CTO, aims to address this challenge faced by MSMEs.
Through integrating emerging technologies like Blockchain & India Stack with data-driven decision-making models, PROFINTECH intends to grow as a business-financing alternative for MSMEs, which facilitates 'timely business financing at low cost'. Towards its vision of making business financing as accessible and easy as a utility service, the company established partnerships across countries such as Philippines, Germany, and the USA.
In an interview with CIO Insider, the leadership team shares their insights into the journey of PROFINTECH.
Give a brief account on PROFINTECH's
growth journey?
We launched PROFINTECH in November 2022. Primarily targeting MSMEs, our company is designing a fresh, scalable & sustainable approach to access business financing, in India & beyond.
We validated our innovative approach across many market feedback sessions, and carefully partnered with investors who contributed their ideas to our long term vision. We decided to build ‘sustainable partnerships with a few anchor customers’ and gather momentum gradually this would
function like a fantastic feedback loop for our Engineering teams to sharpen our suit of products, and allow our customers to experience the product real time. Besides participating actively in Govt’s initiatives like ONDC, we are expanding the network of our finance partners.
Our vision of the future is to make financing both simple & affordable so that small businesses can stay focussed on running & expanding their core business operations. We consider this as a Nation Building activity as the businesses that we serve will contribute to an economically stronger Nation
Which flagship products make PROFINTECH a reliable choice for customers?
We have two flagship products. Our first product facilitates ‘timely business financing at low cost’ for MSMEs, after a rigorous evaluation of their ongoing business transactions and network of business partners this, essentially, is a live trade based financing, which reduces the exhaustive process of credit checks.
Our second product, targeting our finance partners, leverages advanced tools to process vast amounts of customer data, analyse and originate transactions. It strengthens various operational processes to sustain a seamless 360-degree customer experience.
How is the team built and how does the
team gather market insights to ensure
stability and competitiveness?
Our team at PROFINTECH, largely, is made of Technocrats and FinTech professionals with proven track record
and first hand understanding of day today challenges faced by small enterprises. Our close knit family like team is geographically spread across the world, but beautifully weaves together through connecting to a common vision. Our advisory board comprising of highly accomplished professionals from India and USA, with deep domain experience in Financial Services and Technology industry, supports our strategies in building stakeholder connect, product evolution journey, while being around to guide the leadership team.
Our innovation engine continuously is enriched with real world connect and industry insights, thanks to our anchor customers and market feedback from several businesses in textiles, chemicals, agri, retail, eCommerce and healthcare industries.
Ravi Tanniru, Founder & CEO
What is the future roadmap envisioned for PROFINTECH?
Our collective thinking will focus on simplifying processes and supporting MSMEs through an easier access to ‘timely finance at low cost’. A business loan that does not reach the business when it is needed badly, obviously, is not a useful product or service. Beyond being an alternative business financing option, we are committed to building a durable financial infrastructure that brings in efficiencies to trade networks & to cash-flows. At the same time, we are conscious that there will be rapid advancements in technologies and ecosystems around us. If we are not building a flexible design for such a dynamic world, we would be doing disservice to our customers by not bringing them the benefits of evolving.
