Top 10 Winning Lessons from India’s NBFC Unicorns

Introduction

While Tech-savvy Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) are rewriting the rules of lending. These startups are not just plugging the credit gap; they’re doing it with deep customer empathy, powerful data engines, and relentless execution.

Leading the charge are unicorns like InCred Finance, Five Star Business Finance, and OfBusiness. Each of these companies has cracked the code to serve India’s underserved segments, ranging from small businesses and salaried professionals to first-time borrowers in Tier 2 and 3 cities.

We recently chronicled their incredible journeys in detail:
💡 InCred Finance Success Story: 5 Insightful Lessons for Every Entrepreneur
🏢 Five Star Business Finance: 5 Powerful Lessons for Every Entrepreneur
🚀 OfBusiness Success Story: 5 Valuable Lessons for Every Entrepreneur 

Now, we bring you 10 game-changing lessons from these resilient lenders—principles that apply not only to fintech but to every entrepreneur navigating India’s complex, high-potential markets.

1. Obsess Over Last-Mile. Solve for Credit-Starved, Not Just Underserved.

OfBusiness didn’t just offer credit—it embedded itself in the supply chains of SMEs, giving them access to raw materials, logistics, and working capital.
Five Star focused on informal businesses in Tier 2/3 towns with stable incomes but no documentation.
InCred addressed salaried professionals and emerging businesses left out by traditional banks.

✅ Strategic Insight: Build around the economic ecosystem, not just the borrower. Embed yourself into the value chain to create stickiness and scale.

2. Reimagine Underwriting Using Real-World Proxies

Where banks look at income proofs, these NBFCs dug deeper.
OfBusiness used purchase orders, invoices, and transaction patterns from its B2B commerce arm to assess creditworthiness.
Five Star deployed on-ground agents for in-person cash-flow assessment.
InCred blended traditional credit scores with GST filings and bank behaviour.

✅ Strategic Insight: If the data doesn’t exist, generate it. Underwriting should reflect economic reality, not just paperwork.

3. Control Distribution Before You Scale Disbursement

Distribution isn’t a channel—it’s a moat.
Five Star expanded carefully, saturating southern clusters before scaling north.
OfBusiness built direct field teams in industrial clusters.
InCred used a hybrid digital-plus-branch strategy to balance reach and risk.

✅ Strategic Insight: Distribution is the real infrastructure. Nail it first, and scale later.

4. Make Tech the Backbone, Not the Face

None of these unicorns screamed “tech startup.” But every one of them used tech to scale, secure, and streamline.
OfBusiness automated procurement and lending through its OS1 platform.
InCred uses data intelligence for fraud detection and dynamic pricing.
Five Star kept tech invisible, using it quietly to optimise collections.

✅ Strategic Insight: Use tech as leverage, not gimmick. Invisible tech builds real-world impact.

5. Prioritise Collections Culture Over Disbursement Volume

While loan growth gets headlines, collections sustain the business.
Five Star maintained high collection efficiency through tight community relationships.
OfBusiness had repayment discipline baked into supply chain cycles.
InCred leveraged predictive analytics for early intervention.

✅ Strategic Insight: In lending, growth is math, but collections are culture. Build from that principle.

6. Profitability Is the New Valuation

While many fintechs chased user growth, these NBFCs stuck to discipline.
Five Star operated with high EBITDA margins from early on.
OfBusiness achieved profitability while scaling its supply chain finance model.
InCred restructured its business into focused verticals to improve unit economics.

✅ Strategic Insight: Valuation follows viability. Design for margins, not just market share.

7. Build Trust in Markets Where It’s Scarce

Trust is everything when your customer is new-to-credit.
Five Star’s staff work as local advisors.
OfBusiness wins trust by enabling commerce, not just financing it.
InCred invests in content and transparency to educate borrowers.

✅ Strategic Insight: In markets with low credit penetration, trust is the real currency.

8. Customisation Beats Commoditization

Lending is a product business, but great NBFCs treat it like a service.
OfBusiness tailors working capital cycles to procurement and delivery timelines.
Five Star adjusts loan terms based on informal income rhythms.
InCred offers flexible products for salaried, self-employed, and students.

✅ Strategic Insight: Know your customer’s cash flow better than they do. Then build to match.

9. Depth Wins Before Breadth

Before going national, these players went deep.
Five Star dominated southern India before moving outward.
OfBusiness went deep in industrial hubs before eyeing pan-India scale.
InCred built specific verticals—education, personal loans, SME—before expansion.

✅ Strategic Insight: Depth creates defensibility. Win clusters before you chase scale.

10. Build for Volatility, Not Just Velocity

Every NBFC faced shocks—COVID, liquidity squeezes, and regulation.
Five Star held NPAs low through consistent customer profiling.
OfBusiness diversified across commerce, finance, and SaaS to weather cycles.
InCred pivoted away from unsecured lending to balance risk.

✅ Strategic Insight: When you lend in India, resilience is a strategy, not a side effect.

Conclusion: Lending Is Just the Beginning

The rise of OfBusiness, Five Star Business Finance, and InCred Finance proves that India’s most successful NBFCs aren’t just lenders—they’re ecosystem enablers. They’ve redefined how trust is earned, how underserved markets are served, and how sustainable scale is achieved.

These are not overnight stories. They are case studies in resilience, operational depth, and customer-centric innovation.

✅ Whether you’re building a fintech, healthtech, or B2B startup, the lessons from NBFC unicorns offer timeless wisdom:
– Design for Bharat
– Operate with discipline
– Innovate with empathy
– Scale with purpose

Because in India, the best ventures don’t just unlock capital—they unlock possibility. And the most enduring companies aren’t chasing trends—they’re building trust, one customer at a time.