Flipkart lining up $20 million for in-house credit marketplace

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Flipkart is allocating about $15-20 million for the credit marketplace startup being set up internally by its senior executive Prakash Sikaria, multiple people aware of the matter said.

Sikaria – a senior vice president at the firm who was heading the firm's social commerce offering Shopsy and steering its growth charter – is building a credit marketplace that would be housed as a Flipkart entity, where the new capital would be invested.

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The investment will be done gradually as the team is working on several products, and the platform is expected to be ready by end-2023 or early next year, sources added. ET had first reported on May 17 about Sikaria and Flipkart's plans to set up this venture internally.

Sikaria is a shareholder in the credit marketplace along with Walmart-owned Flipkart. Eventually, the firm may be open to external funding at a later stage. For now, this is a significant amount of capital being committed for Sikaria’s venture by Flipkart, even as the industry is faced with a broader funding slowdown.

Sikaria's venture has already worked on credit products like personal loans of up to Rs 5 lakh on Flipkart, but these credit products would be open to external customers and platforms as well.

“Personal loan product was always being built by SIkaria with the idea it would be migrated to the new entity, and Flipkart would be one of the key customer of the same,” a person aware of the matter said.