Fintech SaaS player Lentra aims to grow revenues 4x in three years, plans IPO on hitting target

Backed by MUFG Bank and Bessemer Venture Partners, Lentra has set itself a steep revenue target of ₹1,000 crore by fiscal 2028 up from the current ₹220 crore.

Valued at around $400 million, the Pune-based company plans to grow in its next phase through artificial intelligence-led products, premium pricing, and deeper penetration with both new and existing accounts, president and co-founder Ankur Handa told Mint.

SaaS companies across the world are incorporating AI into their operations to avoid disruption and provide better offerings to customers, as Mint reported this June. At the same time, SaaS spending by firms and their valuations have also cooled.

“AI has the potential to deliver two to three times revenue growth on existing streams,” Handa said, adding that he expects banks to pay a premium if Lentra improves accuracy, efficiency and control of bad assets.

Lentra competes with fintech SaaS players such as Kaleidofin, TransBnk, Perfios and TSLC in the broader lending technology space. The company counts the likes of HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IDFC First Bank among other banks and TVS Credit, Tata Capital and BharatPe, among its NBFC clients.

Founded in 2018 by D. Venkatesh and Handa, Lentra sells software to banks and NBFCs to digitize credit disbursal and downstream workflows such as know your customer identification, underwriting and collections.

Scale a question

The company has so far raised close to $60 million from investors such as Citi Ventures, Susquehanna, and Dharana Capital among others besides MUFG and Bessemer.

Lentra’s scale, however, remains a question. According to an August 2025 report by ICRA, Lentra’s scale of operations remains moderate despite steady growth over the years, limiting its ability to fully leverage economies of scale.

The report also flagged a high client concentration risk, with the top five clients accounting for about 60% of FY25 revenue. This comes at a time when the credit ecosystem in India has turned cautious with consumer spending limited.

But the recent pickup in such spending backed by monthly instalments, especially during the festive season, and overall growth in secured lending is expected to give the company’s revenue a push, Handa said.

“We were in the process of building the zero-to-one journey. Now the company will crack the one-to-ten,” he said.

The next phase of growth will come from adding new customers, cross-selling more, launching AI-led value-added services, and expanding geographically.

According to Abhishek Prasad, managing partner at domestic venture capital firm Cornerstone Ventures, India’s low credit penetration leaves ample headroom for growth. “Products like credit cards have such low penetration compared to peer economies; thus, there is incredible opportunity in India when it comes to credit products,” he said.

Prasad added that platforms widening access to credit and expanding the top of the funnel could see strong growth.

India had over 112 million credit cards at end-August, per data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), growing 6.5% year-on-year.

How AI will help

The company is in the process of building AI capabilities for faster adoption and cross-selling with an aim to earn more from existing customers for banks and NBFCs.

One such offering will be a AI-powered migration tool, aimed at solving a pain point for lenders. “Many banks have legacy systems, and the biggest challenge is moving data safely and efficiently,” said Handa. “We’re building an AI engine to automate all that — mapping fields, translating business logic, and reducing the process from six months to a week.”

Lentra is also pushing deeper into credit analytics as a service, moving from data plumbing to model-driven decision making. “We’re using [credit] bureau data to create a library of around 2,000 derived variables that can be used to build eligibility models and risk scorecards,” Handa said.

The company says these value-added, shorter-cycle offerings—sitting atop its core loan origination and management system—will be priced at a premium and lift revenue per customer.

Meanwhile, it continues to deepen its presence in international markets like the Philippines and Indonesia.

Within categories, Lentra sees two demand engines: co-lending and embedded finance. The company is working with government-owned lenders such as Central Bank of India to connect them with 30-40 NBFCs. On embedded finance, Lentra powers checkout finance for e-commerce and in-store embedded lending.

While many companies are experimenting with AI, according to a widely cited MIT report published in 2025, 95% of generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable profit gains at the enterprise level.

Prasad said that while financial institutions are beginning to pay a premium for AI-led SaaS products, the demand for a value proposition is strong.