Jury voted unanimously for Hardika Shah in the 'Woman Ahead' category for building Kinara Capital to tackle the massive MSME credit gap

BENGALURU, India, Oct. 7, 2024 -- The Economic Times (ET) conferred Hardika Shah, Founder & CEO of Kinara Capital, with its prestigious ET Startup Awards 2024 in its Woman Ahead category. The ET Startup Awards recognized Hardika for identifying a critical gap in the market and delivering a solution for it by building Kinara Capital. Hardika was 1-of-8 winners out of hundreds considered this year and chosen by an independent jury panel led by the eminent Nandan Nilekani.

The Economic Times hosted a grand event attended by illustrious industry leaders on October 5th in Bengaluru to felicitate the awardees. The ET Startup Award was presented in person to Hardika Shah by Honourable Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who serves as India's Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and Minister of Railways.

On winning the prestigious ET Startup Award 2024, Hardika Shah Founder & CEO, Kinara Capital, said, "I am deeply honored to receive the ET Startup Awards 2024 for the Woman Ahead category, any win for me is a win for Kinara Capital. I am proud to lead Kinara Capital with a women-majority management team, so this award symbolizes the growing acknowledgment of women's leadership in shaping the future of India's economy. Together, we are not just paving the way for ourselves, but for future generations of women in business!"

The ET Startup Awards celebrates the most promising entrepreneurs, startups, and disruptors from India's dynamic startup ecosystem. The editorial team shortlisted 41 nominees across 8 award categories and conducted further verification and analysis of each of the nominated leaders. Hardika Shah cinched the votes and emerged as the unanimous jury favourite, who recognized her zeal to tackle the significant challenge of the credit gap faced by underserved MSME entrepreneurs.

The jury panel led by Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder and Chairman of Infosys, also included: Albinder Dhindsa, CEO of Blinkit; Mithun Sacheti, Founder of CaratLane; Nandita Sinha, CEO of Myntra; Nikhil Kamath, Co-Founder of Zerodha; Nyrika Holkar, Executive Director of Godrej & Boyce; Prativa Mohapatra, MD of Adobe India; Ritesh Arora, Co-Founder and CEO of BrowserStack; Shubman Gill, India National Team Cricketer; and Sumer Juneja, Managing Partner and Head of SoftBank, India & EMEA.

As reported by The Economic Times, Albinder Dhindsa, CEO of Blinkit and Jury Member of ET Startup Awards 2024, said, "We liked the ambition from Hardika to solve a large and substantive problem in the lending space. Kinara has the potential to lead the way in creating more entrepreneurial opportunities in the country."

Hardika Shah's focus on leading a women-majority management team and Kinara's commitment to gender parity further strengthened her winning position. Under Hardika Shah's leadership, Kinara Capital has emerged as a key fintech player in India's financial ecosystem, driving economic empowerment of MSME entrepreneurs and earning global recognition for its innovative use of technology.

The company's multilingual myKinara App and AI/ML data-driven credit decisioning provide fast turnaround and can take an entrepreneur from loan inquiry-to-disbursement within 24-hours. Kinara Capital has disbursed over INR  7,401+ crores across 128,027+ collateral-free business loans to date. The impact of this has led to over 426,199 jobs supported in local economies across 100+ cities in India.

About Kinara Capital

Kinara Capital is a fast-growing fintech company driving financial inclusion of the micro-small-medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India. With the use of AI/ML, Kinara Capital is delivering a collateral-free and a bias-free approach to formal credit. Led by the visionary Founder & CEO Hardika Shah, Kinara Capital was recognized by the IFC/SME Finance Forum as the SME Financier of the Year 2024. Kinara Capital is qualified as a Systemically Important Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and is a debt-listed entity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Founded in 2011, and headquartered in Bengaluru, Kinara Capital has 133 branches and a workforce of 2,000+ employees. Visit https://kinaracapital.com for more information and follow us on LinkedIn.

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