Snapmint

Snapmint is a Mumbai-based consumer lending and payments company that lets shoppers in India convert purchases into monthly instalments (EMIs) without a credit card. Consumers verify themselves with a mobile number and OTP (and a PAN number plus a UPI mandate), receive a credit decision in real time, and pay in 3, 6, 9 or 12 monthly instalments under either no-cost or low-cost EMI plans. The company operates a consumer shopping app and website spanning mobiles, electronics, TVs and appliances, kitchen and home, fashion, health and wellness, baby and kids, sports and fitness, and vehicle accessories, and also offers instant personal loans of up to Rs 50,000 to selected existing customers at APRs of 10-35% over 3-5 month tenures. Its own UPI handle is described as NPCI-approved and PCI DSS and ISO certified.

On the merchant side, Snapmint Business supplies a pay-in-3 / pay-later checkout option that brands embed on product, cart and checkout pages, with more than 50 platform integrations. The company positions the offering against cash-on-delivery and card EMI, citing merchant outcomes such as higher average order values, higher checkout conversion and lower return-to-origin rates. Loans are underwritten and booked through Snapmint's captive NBFC and reported to credit bureaus; management describes the product as a consumer-durable-style loan rather than a short-tenure BNPL product. Around a quarter of its customer base is new to credit, and by the company's account roughly two-thirds are new-to-credit or thin-file.

Founding story

In 2016, IIT Bombay alumni Nalin Agrawal, Anil Gelra and Abhineet Sawa were running a programmatic advertising business when an e-commerce client asked them to promote a credit-card EMI checkout feature. The campaign produced an 80-120% lift in users reaching the payment page versus 8-9% for comparable campaigns, but almost none completed a transaction; geo-analysis showed respondents were largely from tier-2 cities without credit cards. That gap between EMI demand and card ownership led the three, who had previously built a patent analytics firm acquired by Netscribes and payment systems for Yes Bank, to found Snapmint in 2017.

Business model

Snapmint earns primarily from merchants rather than borrowers on its zero-cost EMI product: a brand pays a commission of about 3.5% to 10% of order value depending on category and tenure, which subsidises the consumer's interest. The company describes a typical 6-month transaction at a 7.5% commission as leaving roughly 2.5% for credit losses and 3% for cost of capital, with net margin of about 1.5% per transaction. It also runs interest-bearing EMI plans and personal loans, lending from its own NBFC balance sheet, and for the credit-on-UPI product operates a fee-based partnership in which a partner bank holds the credit line exposure while Snapmint handles underwriting and collections.

Merchant commissions on subsidised no-cost EMI orders, plus interest income on low-cost EMI plans and personal loans originated through its in-house NBFC. Reported revenue from operations was Rs 158.5 crore in FY2024-25, up from Rs 88.5 crore in FY2023-24, with a net profit of Rs 15 crore in FY25 versus a Rs 33.6 crore loss the prior year.

Traction

The company reports about 7 million monthly active users across 23,000 pincodes and financing of roughly 1.5 million purchases per month. Interest-free EMI transactions rose to more than 1 million in September 2025 from about 350,000 a year earlier. Cumulative GMV on EMI is stated at over Rs 5,500 crore. Its Android app shows more than 50 million downloads and a 4.6 rating from about 595,000 reviews. FY25 revenue grew about 80% year on year to Rs 158.5 crore with a first net profit of Rs 15 crore; management targets roughly doubling revenue in the following year and Rs 1,000 crore in revenue within three years.

Latest developments

The October 2025 round is being deployed roughly half to capitalise the in-house NBFC and half to scale operations, merchant integrations and customer acquisition; the transaction was expected to close over two to three months. The company is building a credit-on-UPI product in which consumers scan any merchant QR code and see an EMI option backed by a pre-approved credit line held with a partner bank, since RBI restricts credit lines to banks rather than NBFCs. Management has stated an aim to reach more than 100 million consumers over the coming years, starting from a base of 10-15 million existing users.