Navi Technologies, A Startup Founded By One Of Flipkart’s Founders Has Filed For An IPO

Fintech startup Navi Technologies has filed for a $440 million initial public offering (IPO). According to its filing with the local regulator on Saturday, Navi Technologies’ IPO will consist of entirely new shares and it may consider raising a pre-IPO placement.

The IPO announcement comes amid a decline in tech stocks. In recent weeks, tech startups including brands such as PolicyBazaar, Nykaa, Zomato, Paytm, which all debuted last year, have experienced their lowest share prices.

Navi Technology is a fintech startup that provides its users with loans – digital personal loans, home loans, etc., insurance products specifically health insurance and digital asset management services. It was founded in 2018 by Sachin Bansal – a co-founder of the Indian e-commerce brand Flipkart.

Navi Technologies is entirely funded by its billionaire founder – Sachin Bansal. Its most recent attempt to raise money from SoftBank and other investors flopped due to its inability to acquire a license to become a bank, sources say.

In the draft prospectus submitted to the local regulator, Navi Technologies which targets the unbanked populace described itself saying that “With its in-house NBFC (non-banking lender) arm, AI/ML-based underwriting and digital-only D2C approach, Navi has been able to exercise control over its lending products from sourcing, underwriting to the collection and offer a smooth experience to customers.”

With its products, the startup is ensuring “instant loan disbursals, offer digital home loans at low-interest rates, leverage technology to manage fraud and credit default risks, use data analytics to train its lending algorithms to offer attractive pricing and better loan account management and exercising both digital and field collections to its advantage.”

For a startup that’s still quite young and fully funded by its founder, Navi Technologies is doing really well. The company which claims that its lending and health insurance products are in hot demand reported a combined profit of $9.2 million and revenue of $17.8 million. The company has also served more than 481,000 customers in India as well as offered loans (these loans have a ticket size of $665) worth 2 million rupees to customers.

 “As of December 31, 2021, 61.17% of our health insurance policies sold were approved without any human assistance on the Navi App. Further, we have developed our chat-based interface which ensures that our customers are served seamlessly throughout their buying journey,” the startup said.

“We offer health insurance premiums through EMIs, where a customer can pay a fixed amount every month towards their policy has made our products attractive and affordable. During the nine months ended December 31, 2021, our GWP was ₹667.60 million, of which ₹63.26 million was from the retail health insurance segment. During the nine months ended December 31, 2021, we had issued a total of 220,491 insurance policies of which 27,800 were retail health insurance policies,” the startup added.

Navi Technologies was formerly known as BACQ Acquisitions Private Limited and was founded after Sachin Bansal exited Flipkart.