Cashe, once a prominent player in India’s digital lending space leveraging phone data and social signals, faces a sharp business contraction after years of rapid growth, highlighting the volatile nature of tech-driven fintech models.
CASHe, once promoted as a lending platform for salaried Indians with thin credit files, has seen its business model shrink sharply after a period of rapid growth. The fintech, founded in 2016 by V. Raman Kumar, had been built around the idea that phone data and social signals could help assess borrowers beyond traditional bureau scores.
That ambition was backed by investors including TSLC Pte. Ltd, former Blackstone India co-head Mathew Cyriac and Kotak Mahindra Bank, and the company had previously talked up sizeable loan growth. Financial Express reported early in CASHe’s life that it had crossed ₹650 crore in disbursals within 33 months, while later coverage showed the platform moving past ₹10,000 crore in cumulative lending and claiming more than three million loans to over two million customers.
The momentum has not held. According to Inc42, CASHe’s revenue fell 52.6% in fiscal 2024-25 to ₹325 crore, down from ₹685.6 crore a year earlier, even though it still reported a profit after tax of ₹2.7 crore. That comes after a strong FY23, when Mediaal said revenue from operations had climbed to ₹560.6 crore from ₹257.5 crore in FY22, suggesting the company’s finances have swung from rapid expansion to a much leaner phase.
In its growth years, CASHe had marketed unsecured personal loans to salaried millennials, with borrowing often linked to medical bills, weddings, home renovation and education. Business Standard reported in 2019 that the company was exploring a path towards a small finance bank licence and, eventually, a digital bank model. The latest numbers, however, indicate a lending franchise that has lost much of its earlier scale.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to inform and educate, not to recommend or endorse any financial product, investment or strategy. Please consider your own financial circumstances and seek professional advice where appropriate before making financial decisions.
