A Masterclass on Digital Lending for "Middle India" | Madhusudan Ekambaram (KreditBee)

"I told students, 'Please break our system. If you break it, the product is free for you.'"

This counterintuitive approach reveals the genius behind Madhusudan Ekambaram's early strategy. Instead of avoiding failure, he gamified it, turning his first users—students—into a dedicated team for stress-testing and fraud detection, building an incredibly robust platform from day one.

Madhusudan Ekambaram is the Co-founder and CEO of KreditBee, one of India's leading digital lending platforms. He has scaled the company to serve over 70 million users , disbursing ₹21,000 crores in loans in FY24 alone. Under his leadership, KreditBee has underwritten over 40 million customers and achieved significant profitability, with profit after tax growing nearly 200% in the last fiscal year.

Key Insights from the Conversation:

• The Co-lending Model: KreditBee scales capital efficiently through a "skin-in-the-game" co-lending model, where its own NBFC takes a portion of the loan risk alongside partners, building immense trust in the debt ecosystem.
• Winning "Middle India": The company's core strategy focuses on the massive, underserved market in non-metro cities, with over 77% of its customers coming from this demographic.
• The Data Quantum Moat: The true competitive advantage is not just the algorithm but the sheer volume of data from underwriting over 40 million customers, which makes their risk models uniquely powerful.
• Regulation as a Strength: By operating with its own NBFC license from the start, KreditBee built a resilient business that was well-prepared for India's evolving regulatory landscape for digital lending.

Chapters:

• (01:34) - From Corporate Life to a Fintech Insight
• (06:28) - The "Zero-Cost" Go-To-Market with Students
• (11:26) - How We "Hacked" a BNPL Product
• (17:52) - The "Skin-in-the-Game" Co-lending Model
• (28:27) - The Fundraising Journey: From Xiaomi to Premji Invest
• (35:54) - Navigating the COVID-19 Crisis
• (45:45) - The Underwriting Moat: Why Data is King
• (54:59) - Customer Acquisition Beyond Google & Facebook
• (1:05:03) - Why Regulated Fintechs Still Need Equity

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