Sucharita Mukherjee: Pioneering Financial Inclusion Through Kaleidofin
A Personal Mission
For Sucharita Mukherjee, the journey into entrepreneurship is deeply personal. As the co-founder and CEO of Kaleidofin, a financial technology platform based in Chennai, she is driven by a commitment to address the unique challenges faced by informal India, particularly women. “It was clear that we wanted to build for informal India, Bharat, and for women in particular,” Mukherjee shares during a video call with Forbes India. This personal connection to the mission fuels her passion and determination to create impactful financial solutions.
Kaleidofin’s Vision
Founded in 2017 alongside co-founder Puneet Gupta, Kaleidofin aims to empower under-banked customers, especially women, by providing tailored financial solutions that align with their real-life goals. “We believe that everyone deserves and requires access to financial solutions that are intuitive and easy to use, flexible and personalized to real goals that can make financial progress and financial freedom possible,” Mukherjee explains. The platform has successfully attracted over 3 million users, with an impressive 97 percent being women, including a million small-time entrepreneurs.
Understanding Customer Needs
Mukherjee emphasizes the volatility of her customers’ lives, who often require a combination of savings, credit, and insurance but lack the time and resources to navigate traditional financial systems. “Our customers’ lives are extremely volatile,” she notes. Kaleidofin addresses this by offering goal-based savings solutions that can range from expanding a tailoring business to funding a child’s education or even constructing a bathroom at home. “The journey is always hard,” she reflects, acknowledging the challenges of venturing into uncharted territory, yet finding satisfaction in the impact they create.
From London to Chennai: A Journey of Purpose
A Settled Life in Finance
Mukherjee’s path to entrepreneurship began in London, where she worked at Deutsche Bank after graduating from Lady Shri Ram College and IIM-Ahmedabad. Despite a seemingly successful career in finance, she felt a void. “I began to ask myself, why am I doing this? What impact am I having? What is my purpose?” These questions lingered, leading her to seek fulfillment beyond the corporate world.
Finding Her Calling
During her visits to India, Mukherjee engaged with NGOs focused on primary education, searching for a way to apply her expertise in credit structuring to benefit the underserved. This quest led her to Nachiket Mor, a former ICICI Bank executive who was establishing the IFMR Trust to make financial markets accessible to the poor. “I was pretty struck by the vision,” she recalls. Over the next decade, she co-founded IFMR and Northern Arc Capital, focusing on financial inclusion.
The Birth of Kaleidofin
By 2017, Mukherjee was ready to launch Kaleidofin, inspired by the potential of IndiaStack—a set of open APIs enabling digital access to government services. “It had a lot of promise, and we got really excited about how we could impact customers at scale,” she says. The vision was clear: to create intuitive financial products that cater to the needs of vulnerable populations, particularly women in small businesses.
Innovative Financial Solutions
Connecting Financial Services
Kaleidofin began as a platform linking large financial service providers with women-led small businesses. Starting with mutual funds, the company expanded to include insurance and banking services, partnering with microfinance institutions and cooperative banks through a network of agents. “The first product that we launched was with SEWA Bank,” Mukherjee explains, highlighting their innovative approach to combining recurring deposit products with insurance for goal-based savings.
Diverse Product Offerings
Today, Kaleidofin boasts a suite of four products designed to enhance financial accessibility. The flagship offering, Ki Score, serves as a credit and financial health score, utilizing AI and machine learning to assist lenders in making informed credit decisions. “One of the big gaps that lenders have is that they don’t know how to underwrite the customer,” Mukherjee points out.
The second product, Ki Credit, streamlines the onboarding process and conducts fraud checks for lenders. Additionally, Ki View provides a risk management dashboard for post-disbursement monitoring, featuring alerts in natural language to simplify risk management. Finally, Ki Cash serves as a customer engagement platform and a fully digital savings bank, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Growth and Future Prospects
Breaking Even and Scaling Up
Kaleidofin is on the brink of breaking even, poised for growth amid a burgeoning push for financial inclusion in India, driven by a smartphone revolution. The Indian fintech sector is projected to generate revenues of $190 billion by 2030, according to a Boston Consulting Group report. Mukherjee explains their revenue model, which includes platform fees from loans and income from other intellectual property products like Ki Score.
Empowering Women in Leadership
An interesting aspect of Kaleidofin is its board composition, with a majority of women—a rarity in India’s corporate landscape. Mukherjee acknowledges this as a competitive advantage, stating, “I know it’s unusual, and I can tell you it’s a huge competitive advantage.” The company operates through 50 channel partners across 17 states, further solidifying its commitment to financial inclusion.
Looking Ahead
As Mukherjee and Gupta prepare to enhance their credit platform and improve the Ki Score offering, they remain focused on staying ahead of the curve. “We always want to be ahead of the curve,” Mukherjee asserts, emphasizing their commitment to better underwriting and customer retention. With a clear vision and a strong foundation, Kaleidofin is set to make a lasting impact on the financial landscape for women and underserved communities in India.