Established in late 2015, OfBusiness is a technology-driven Fintech Company rolling out smart financing services to the SMEs. Making monetization easier by blending finance with services is what best describes the company. Delivering unsecured credit lines as an alternate to financing makes it a single-window for SMEs in manufacturing and infrastructure. Thus, apart from financing, OfBusiness plays a pivotal role in offering cost-effective raw materials, thereby passing the aggregation benefits to the SMEs.
The Agile Leadership
Asish Mohapatra is the Co-Founder and CEO of OfBusiness. For him, entering into the business world and adopting new-age tech advancements was not at easy task. But with concrete endeavors, Asish placed his best foot forward in the SME sector with an aim to offer marketing opportunities to the SMEs. Acknowledging the market scenario with innovative and scalable ways at OfBusiness, Asish says, “We address it through apprenticeship and a hands-on approach.”
Being in the SME sector, the co-founder also faced the challenges related to the cost of collections. But, his business prowess assisted OfBusiness in offering materials on credit rather than money, thereby ensuring 360o financing. Under his guidance, the company provides cost-effective materials and a 12-15% of the working capital requirement, which makes the company a foremost choice for SMEs. This amplifies the cost collection process in the longer run.
Apart from all this, Ashish also takes campus sessions related to tech innovations at IIFT. His idea of the impact of GST on the SMEs has been highlighted in the SME World magazine. He has also been an industry insider for startup funding in the SME Times and has also published his insights on VC-turned-entrepreneurs. Last but not the least, Asish has been featured in the ‘Rising Stars’ by Bloomberg TV (BTVI) and VC circle panel discussion on fintech.
About OfBusiness
Since inception, the company has been prominently focusing on quenching customer needs to the core, rather than building products which it wants to deliver. Its initiative of combining financing with services makes it distinctive. The company has a curated take on learning through failures, which helps it in standing tall amongst its peers.
SME Clients get three simple benefits from the company:
IRR saving on interest rates – While the intermediaries charge 25-30% per annum for the raw materials, OfBusiness charges 18-19% as it is an institutional, leveraged lender.
Margin saving on raw materials – Most of the intermediaries charge a price margin of 2-3% on a spot rate, while OfBusiness charges 1% and passes the rest to the SMEs.
Revenue opportunities through ‘Bidassist’ – A new generation tender aggregation platform that crawls across 7,000 authorities and over 12,000 tenders daily to make tender information available to the SME in a relevant and user-friendly way through Natural Language Processing.
Today, OfBusiness has a 400 Cr. AUM with 150 Cr. monthly disbursals. Adding more colors to this splendor is its:
NPA – less than 0.5% | RoA – more than 6% | Growth rate – 12-13% month-over-month
Over the years, the company has won multiple awards and recognitions including:
- The Smart CEO Startup50 List for India from amongst various sectors including enterprise technology, consumer internet, education, healthcare, consumer products, agri-tech, business services and social impact ventures.
- Ranked 8th in the workplace experience rankings 2017 by Culturro.
- Selected as the 20 top-funded fintech companies in India by Tech in Asia.
The Principle of ‘ABC’
OfBusiness follows a simple principle across the organization to maintain a hassle-free work environment, be it levels, functions, regions or any other dividing barrier. It’s the principle of ABC that drives the organization to generate profitable outcomes:
Altruism – OFBians are selfless while helping others. They care about the common goal, without caring about self-credit.
Brotherhood – OFBians are like family, they are more than family! They dine together, party together, but more than anything else they are backed by one another.
Camaraderie – The kind of trust the company has built amongst its teams is unparalleled. OfBusiness is well-equipped with are a diverse set of individuals who trust each other.
Message for the Emerging
OfBusiness advices the young minds to ‘never give up’ on their dreams and be self-committed, which would help them in attaining relationships and maintaining them. This would help the emerging startups and tech enthusiasts to create a trustworthy niche in their sector.
The Future Roadmap
“We believe that for us, sky is the limit in what we are attempting,” asserts Asish.
Acknowledging that the raw materials which it finances and aggregates are really expensive, OfBusiness is planning to take a deeper dive into the manufacturing and infrastructure space – in the number of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) and the raw materials on-board. The company is planning to spread its wings across the globe. Like its secured project financing launched in the past few months, it will make more cash flow oriented products that will match the working capital cycle of the SME in a better manner.
