How Propelld is rebuilding education lending in India

Education was not just a career choice. It was embedded in the family DNA. His co-founder Bibhu Prasad Das’ grandfather built a college with his pension. Senapaty’s father routinely guided extended family members through college admissions, sometimes quite literally driving them to interviews.

This lived proximity to education, rather than any fintech ambition, became the emotional seed for Propelld.

Failure came early

Before Propelld, Senapaty started multiple ventures between 2014 and 2016, ranging from education experiments to a custom apparel business. But nothing worked.

But those failures were formative. “We failed fast and we failed cheap,” he says, echoing lessons from Paul Graham that only made sense in hindsight. Without large capital buffers, the team was forced to confront reality quickly and learn what not to do.

That discipline would later become a defining edge in financial services.

The insight that changed everything

The real breakthrough came when the founders began studying education financing at a systemic level. The numbers were startling. In FY25, SBI, the largest education loan provider, disbursed about ₹0.15 trillion in education loans. In the same year, it disbursed over ₹2.2 trillion in home loans.

Even more revealing was what lay beneath the NPA headlines. Loans above ₹5 lakh showed NPAs closer to 5%. Loans below ₹4 lakh saw NPAs crossing 40%.

To Senapaty, this was not retail credit risk. It was systemic risk. Political interference, priority sector distortions, and one-size-fits-all underwriting had broken the model.

“Education loans have been evaluated like retail products,” he explains. “But education is a project.” That insight became Propelld’s core thesis.

Underwriting the education project, not the student alone

Instead of asking who the borrower is, Propelld asks a different question. Is this education project viable?

Their underwriting evaluates the institute and course, with continuous re-rating, delivery quality versus promise, course completion signals, student engagement and satisfaction, and historical outcomes where relevant.

In Senapaty’s words, Propelld thinks of itself as a CRISIL-like rating engine for education.

With AI, this approach is now scaling faster, aggregating data across institutions, geographies, and courses without being constrained by human bandwidth alone.

Crucially, feedback loops do not stop at disbursal. Student repayment behavior, customer support feedback, and institute-level issues feed directly back into risk models, closing the loop between outcomes and underwriting.

Why COVID became an inflection point, not a setback

Perhaps the most counterintuitive moment in Propelld’s journey came during COVID.

While most lenders froze disbursals, Propelld increased them. The reason was simple, ground-level data showed something unexpected. Attendance improved, student intent strengthened, and course engagement rose. Education, it turned out, was counter-cyclical.

Despite offering moratoriums universally, fewer than 10% of borrowers opted in.

Even through COVID, demonetisation, and the edtech downturn, Propelld’s NPAs stayed around 1 to 1.2%.

For Senapaty, this validated a core belief “Risk discipline beats growth aggression in lending, every single time.”

Lessons for founders entering lending

For entrepreneurs exploring lending, especially niche credit, Senapaty offers blunt advice.

First, fall in love with risk before distribution. Spend time with collections teams. Understand why people do not repay before figuring out how to acquire customers.

Second, respect compounding and leverage. Lending is not linear growth. It magnifies both profits and mistakes.

Third, build regulation literacy yourself. You can outsource execution, not understanding. Founders must grasp regulatory intent, not just compliance checklists.

Fourth, hire problem-solvers, not pedigree. Early teams should optimise for agency and adaptability, not resumes.

The road ahead: Beyond lending

Propelld has already financed over four lakh students and disbursed nearly ₹4,000 crore. But Senapaty’s ambition goes further. He envisions a future where education financing becomes part of a broader decision-making framework, helping families evaluate not just how to pay, but whether a course or institute makes sense given long-term outcomes.

IPO plans, AI-first underwriting, lower operating costs, and deeper consumer guidance all sit on the roadmap.

Yet beneath the scale and metrics lies a quieter motivation.

“My mom still isn’t convinced,” Senapaty says with a smile. “But maybe when we ring the IPO bell.”

For a founder who started in a Tier II city, failed early, and rebuilt education credit from first principles, that bell, whenever it rings, will symbolise more than financial success. It will mark a redefinition of how India invests in its future.