Mintifi plans offline expansion

Mintifi, a Mumbai-based supply chain financing startup, aims to open more than 100 branches in India this financial year as part of its strategy to expand its operations and grow its presence offline. "We have been building our physical distribution network," Anup Agarwal, co-founder of Mintifi said in an interview. "Because we fundamentally believe that while lending can be automated, collections cannot be fully automated. You still need people on the ground to go out and collect your payments in case the customer is doing it".

- Malvika Maloo

Founded in 2017 by Agarwal, Ankit Mehta and Sanjoy Shome, Mintifi counts PremjiInvest, Norwest Venture Partners, Elevation Capital and the International Finance Corporation among its backers. It provides payments, invoicing and purchase financing solutions to distributors and retailers in the supply chain space. It works with over 100 companies including Tata Motors, Jockey, Varun Beverages, TVS Motor and Bridgestone. The company currently has 40 branches.