Lendingkart founder joins Temasek owned Affinidi as India MD

The Affinidi Group, founded and incubated by Singapore government backed investment firm Temasek, has appointed Mukul Sachan as the managing director of its India operations.  

Sachan co-founded micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) focused online lending platform Lendingkart in 2014 with Harshvardhan Lunia and served as its COO till September 2019. At the time of Sachan’s departure, Lunia had said that the former would continue to be an active mentor and consultant for the group. As per VCCEdge, the firm has raised over Rs 1,087 crore in equity capital from the likes of Dutch Bank entrepreneurial development bank FMO, Fullerton Financial Holdings, Bertelsmann India and Sistema Asia Fund. 

In late 2019, Sachan went on to launch Optimus Capital, a startup focused on using technology to generate returns from capital markets, and worked at the company for a year.  

Former AWS chief architect Glenn Gore, currently the CEO of Affinidi, confirmed Sachan’s appointment at the 2020-founded company via a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.

“Mukul Sachan joins as Managing Director, India for Affinidi where he is responsible for leading our India team, initiatives and partnerships especially with GoodWorker. India is fast becoming a leader in the use of decentralised solutions due to the scale of the country and future growth ambitions,” Gore said in the post. GoodWorker, set up in 2020, is an Affinidi-operated digital platform that looks to match blue collar workers and employers in the Indian market.  

Affinidi did not respond to TechCircle’s queries on Sachan’s reporting structure and other appointment details.  

The Singapore headquartered company has been hiring employees with engineering capabilities for its Bengaluru office, as per the company’s website. It has operations in Berlin as well. 

It also runs Singapore based curated business-to-business cross-border trade marketplace Trustana, focused on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in China and Singapore. The marketplace provides verifiable leads for international trade. 

Earlier this year, the company announced the launch of a QR-code based digital health passport to help airline partners verify Covid-19 test reports of passengers. Taiwan airline EVA Air has reportedly been using out the product. Affinidi has also tied up with blockchain company Accredify to generate QR code status for health certification of tourists traveling from Indonesia to Singapore, as per media reports.