Borrower Name : Lend East
Website : https://lendeast.com/
Lend East is a digital lending platform that connects global institutional capital with alternate lenders in Emerging Asia (Southeast Asia & India). Lend East is revolutionising alternate lending by offering scalable growth capital with zero dilution to technology ventures. Leveraging Spa{R}3k, its proprietary credit and risk analytics platform, Lend East has made high impact investments in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore & Vietnam since 2019.
Key Highlights
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Founded in 2019 by a team of former fintech entrepreneurs, fund managers, investment professionals, bankers & data scientists with industry expertise, deep regional networks, disciplined origination, robust due diligence and special situations expertise
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Since inception, Lend East has evaluated over 100 alternate lenders and onboarded 60+ of them on Spa{R}3k, its proprietary credit analytics & risk platform
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Lend East has committed US$50mn in investments across seven market leading platforms across Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam & India; all borrowers are backed by marquee equity investors like Sequoia, Ant Financial, DST Global, Arbor Ventures
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Strong performance track record, generating healthy risk adjusted yields for investors with no delays or defaults in borrower repayments
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Lend East is targeting to fund at least US$ 50 million in diversified lending opportunities on the Goldfinch protocol over the next one year
Our Team: Key Members & Bios
Karan Bhatia | Co-Founder & CEO : With over 15 years of experience in financial services Karan brings a wealth of credit, structuring, investment and operational experience across Asia and the US. Prior to Lend East, Karan was the Founder & CEO of X10 Finance, an alternative lending platform focused on supply chain finance solutions for SMEs in India. X10 managed USD 80 million of lending with no defaults, in a short span of 2 years. Karan led the successful sale of the X10 portfolio to a leading Indian Financial Institution in 2017. Prior to X10, Karan worked at Deutsche Bank as a part of the Strategic Investment Group. Earlier in his career he worked with Mason Capital and Puma Capital with focus on high yield and special situations credit investments. Karan is a CFA charter holder and has an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business. He completed his Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.
Varun Gupta | Co-Founder & CIO : Varun has over 13 years of experience in leading fintech ventures and large banks in ASEAN. Prior to Lend East, Varun was instrumental in building and scaling up Moolahsense, Singapore’s first P2P Lending platform. Prior to his foray into Fintech, Varun has worked with leading Indian banks & Financial Institutions like Axis Bank, Barclays and Bajaj Finance. Varun holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, with his first degree in Engineering.
Jennifer Sung | Chief Business Officer : Jennifer leads Investors Relations & Partnerships. Prior to Lend East, Jennifer managed Strategy & Investor Relations for Lendingkart (LK), a leading digital lending platform in India. Prior to LK, she was an investment banker with Deutsche bank. Jennifer holds an MBA from INSEAD and an honors degree in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.
Nanda Thiruvengadam | Chief Product Officer : Nanda is accountable for Product, Analytics and Technology at Lend East. He has led the development of our platform, Spa{R}3k. Prior to Lend East, Nanda spent 10 years at KPMG advisory as the Head of Risk Analytics practice. Earlier in his career, Nanda also developed predictive analytics models for community banks and MFIs while he was with Shorebank Advisory Services. Nanda has an Executive MBA from INSEAD and Masters in Applied Math from Penn State.
Jeremy Hui | Sr. Data Scientist : Jeremy builds, trains and deploys Machine Learning models to manage credit risk at Lend East. Prior to Lend East, Jeremy has worked with Barclays & Accenture. He holds a M.S. in Financial Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and B.S. in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business.
Raj Rajarajan | Sr. Associate: Raj fronts our investment efforts by managing originations, deal flow, due diligence & borrower relationships. He has more than 6 years of experience in Risk Management spread across HSBC, ANZ and CRISIL. Raj is a certified FRM with a Masters degree in Quantitative Finance from Singapore Management University
Asyrafi Arifin | Associate : Asyrafi fronts our investment efforts by managing originations, deal flow, due diligence & borrower relationships. Prior to Lend East, Asyrafi co-founded an F&B venture in Singapore. An avid crypto investor, Asyrafi holds a double major in Economics and Finance from Singapore Management University
What we do:
Investment Thesis
Lend East facilitates the flow of debt capital to growth stage, tech forward, Alternate Lenders with strong teams & scalable portfolios in Emerging Asia. Since inception, we have originated over 100+ deals in the region. Our borrowers are backed by marquee global VC, Private Equity & Strategic investors and working towards the cause of financial inclusion in the region.
Our borrowers are market leading alternate lenders with:
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Seasoned credit portfolios with underwriting models having gone through multiple iterations (at least 3+ years)
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Strong support of marquee PE / VC/ Strategic investors as well as lenders
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Proven and established business models in their specific geographies/products
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Regulatory compliance & licensing in operating regions
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Visibility around business scalability in the medium to long term
Geographic Focus
What we’ve accomplished:
Since inception we have originated over a 100+ deals in the region. Spa{R}3k has onboarded over 60+ alternate lending platforms with the aggregate AUM of US$ 500mn across 4 countries. We have committed deployments of US$ 50mn across seven market leading platforms. We maintain a solid performance track record, generating healthy risk adjusted yields for our investors with no delays or defaults in borrower repayments. Our portfolio companies have grown considerably and raised multi-million dollars in equity funding from marquee investors, further strengthening our security.
How we do it: Sourcing & Investment Process
Our origination strategy is primarily driven by our deep regional network of founders, VC, PE, Strategic investors in the form of introductions / referrals. Since inception, we have organically developed a differentiated brand, leading to a strong inbound interest from ventures seeking non-dilutive growth capital solutions.
Our proprietary platform, Spa{R}3k helps to manage the end-to-end life cycle of every investment. Using its three modules of Research, Relative Value & Risk Management, Spa{R}3k helps us conduct an extensive due diligence on each borrower and monitor portfolio health post deployment. In our man + machine model, significant time is spent on building structural safeguards (Excess portfolio cover, Seniority on the balance sheet, Corporate guarantees etc.) to generate a healthy return for our investors while ensuring capital preservation.
What should backers expect?
The portfolio performance & financial health reports will be distributed among all Backers on a quarterly basis, to the extent the underlying Lend East loan is collateral for the outstanding Goldfinch loan.
Why Goldfinch?
Lend East is excited to raise capital through Goldfinch because we believe in leveraging the power of crypto to create real world financial inclusion.
As former entrepreneurs and operators, we have experienced the difficulties of raising capital firsthand. We built Lend East with the vision to make high impact investments by helping founders access scalable debt capital. Like our fiat investors, DeFi investors also need to diversify their investment portfolio. Along with the short-term liquidity mining rewards and capital gains, a sustainable source of healthy fixed income yield which connects the crypto community to real world borrowers presents an attractive opportunity to generate returns while making an impact at the grassroots level. Hence, we are bullish about the platform Goldfinch has created.
We have spent the last three years connecting accredited fiat investors to this upcoming asset class. Now, we want to make access to this asset class simple, transparent & frictionless for crypto investors. We are excited to bring great investment opportunities to the Goldfinch community.
What will Lend East bring to the Goldfinch community? What are LE’s plans for working with Goldfinch over the next year?
Lend East is targeting to fund at least US$ 50 million in diversified lending opportunities, on the Goldfinch protocol over the next one year. Lend East will also opportunistically participate as a Backer Tranche investor, helping to drive liquidity into the protocol through its existing investment vehicles.
Additional Resources
Lend East Investor Presentation: DocSend
Lend East Discord Channel: LendEast
Lend East GF Data room: DocSend