Sometime in the second quarter of 2022, Harshvardhan Lunia, the founder and then CEO of the fintech Lendingkart, boarded a flight from Ahmedabad to Mumbai. The agenda was simple: to acquire Upwards, a fellow lending company. 

With over 110,000 active loan accounts and Rs 6,000 crore in assets under management (AUM) in September 2023, Lendingkart was then termedGripinvestLendingkart: Revolutionising MSME Loans With Technology And Innovation India’s leading MSME-focused credit platform. And the Upwards acquisition was its attempt at expanding into the personal-loan market. 

In fact, the........

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