VCCircle

This is a deal Sequoia Capital India hasn't announced officially. But you can spot the name of the company in their list of portfolio firms. The Silicon Valley venture firm has backed Apnaloan.com, an Indian lead generation company for financial products. According to media reports (here and here), Sequoia has invested $2.2 million in Apnaloan. [There were rumours of this deal earlier]

Interestingly, in 2001, Rediff.com had made a strategic investment in Apnaloan with an option to increase the stake upto 100 per cent over a period of time (see this SEC filing). It's not clear if Rediff is still an investor in the company or if they have exited. Nor is it clear if the other investors like ING Vysya Bank, SIDBI Venture, Jumpstartup Venture Fund, FMO and Edelweiss Capital are still with the company.

Apnaloan was founded in 2000 - during the heady days of dotcom - by Harsh Vardhan Roongta, who was earlier with ICICI Bank's retail lending division. Apnaloan uses the internet to reduce the cost of loan origination and also in selling credit cards and so on (hope it can end the telemarketers' menace). The loan origination market (including insurance products) is estimated at about Rs 1,500 crore currently. As for loans, the lead generation commission could be anywhere between 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent, while for health and auto insurance products it could be 5 per cent.

Apnaloan is a first mover in this market, although new players like Deal4loans.com are now making their way.