Bengaluru: Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal said his new venture Navi was already close to becoming the largest digital lending app in India, within 3 months of launch. In a conversation with Sequoia Capital Managing Director Rajan Anandan at the Global Fintech Festival, he also outlined his plans for the insurance and mutual fund space but said he would steer clear of payments as of now. 

Bansal founded Navi Technologies after exiting Flipkart in 2018 after the e-commerce major was acquired by Walmart. Bansal is also a prolific backer of many startups and has also invested in unicorns such as Ola. 

Talking about his new venture, Bansal said, “Navi is close to the largest digital lending app in the country within 3 months of launch. We are going to blow first-year targets out of the park. We give 12-24 month tenure unsecured loans of up to Rs 5 lakh. We have our own credit underwriting mechanism. The entire process is paperless. NPAs will be lower than what we budgeted.”

Talking about why he decided to move from e-commerce to BFSI for his second venture, Bansal spoke about how underserved middle-class customers were in India. “If you are an HNI in India you get great service. If you are a middle-class person in India, you don’t get good service.” 

Navi wants to fill that gap and has plans for health and motor insurance, apart from applying for banking and mutual fund licenses. Bansal however said he will not get into the payments space, which already has multiple players. 

When asked about his key learnings from Flipkart, he said, “What we did well was we bet big after we were convinced about a market opportunity. The few big bets- logistics in house, phones as category, fashion worked very well. We were able to see things before others and bet big on it.”