Through the acquisition, DMI will have the exclusive right to the use of all Zest brands, with its non-banking finance company (NBFC) arm DMI Finance being the preferred lender on Zest’s platform, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill Courses
| Offering College | Course | Website |
|---|---|---|
| IIT Delhi | IITD Certificate Programme in Data Science & Machine Learning | Visit |
| Indian School of Business | ISB Product Management | Visit |
| IIM Lucknow | IIML Executive Programme in FinTech, Banking & Applied Risk Management | Visit |
The news comes as ZestMoney had informed employees last month about its plans to shut down by the end of December.
ET had reported on December 29 that Zest’s lending partners DMI Finance and Aditya Birla Finance were trying to scoop up fintech lending startup in a firesale.
“We are always looking for best-in-class solutions to enhance both the engagement with – and the experience of – our customer and merchant base. We have been partnered with ZestMoney for over 8 years in various capacities. We firmly believe that this acquisition will be an important step in our journey to provide digital financial inclusion at scale across India,” said Shivashish Chatterjee, cofounder and joint managing director of DMI.
In a statement, DMI said that it will be adding ZestMoney’s checkout financing platform to its product suite. Further, the financial services group will also be bringing its customer base, balance-sheet strength and significant risk-management experience to drive growth across Zest’s online and offline merchant network.
Discover the stories of your interest
DMI has raised over $1.5 billion of investment capital supported by global institutional investors, strategic family offices and international banks. “DMI has been at the forefront of digital lending in India. They bring strong capital support and deep expertise. DMI has been an early supporter of ZestMoney and we are very excited to take our partnership to a whole new level,” said Mandar Satpute, chief operating officer of Zest.
ZestMoney currently has an outstanding loan book of around Rs 400 crore, which it has sourced for its lending partners.
Further for DMI and Zest’s other lending partners, it is important to collect the outstanding dues from the BNPL platform’s customers.
In 2021, during the heydays of the BNPL boom, ZestMoney had raised $50 million from Australian BNPL startup Zip at a valuation of $340 million.
However, fortunes turned for the startup after negotiations for proposed acquisition of the company by Walmart-owned PhonePe fell through, reportedly due to concerns raised around the asset quality of loans sourced by Zest.
