TurnKey Lender founder Dmitry Voronenko to take part in SBR's Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2018

He will tackle how startups can gain and retain international customers.

Dmitry Voronenko is no stranger to business. After all, TurnKey Lender is his fourth brainchild after he set up three other successful business ventures including software development and consulting firm Softerra LLC and artificial neural network software Alyuda Research which counts IBM, Stanford and Boston Consulting Group amongst its elite client list.

Using his formidable industry expertise, Dmitry along with co-founder Elena Ionenko established TurnKey Lender in 2014 with the goal of bringing the same level of sophisticated automation and credit risk management technology deployed by big banks to micro-lenders.

Operating as a cloud-based loan management system, TurnKey Lender provides end-to-end lending business automation technology with advanced credit scoring, decision automation and loan management to smaller players like multifinance firms, rural banks, pawnshops and fintechs.

“That’s how we came up with the idea of the lean cloud platform, which would combine the best practices of the banking industry, all the most advanced credit scoring and reporting tools with the unlimited flexibility and affordability,” Ionenko said in an earlier interview.

TurnKey Lender is already present in 25 countries with a focus on Southeast Asia and has racked up around US$3.6m in funding to date.

In an exclusive interview with Singapore Business Review, Dmitry lays are TurnKey Lender’s corporate vision and how aspring firms can gain valuable lessons from their entrepreneurial journey as he graces SBR Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2018 where he will be joined by Ionenko as panel speaker.

What are your key business philosophies?

Client satisfaction is the main criteria for the business; everything else – internal constraints, partnerships, routine internal business processes, approved business plans, product roadmaps, etc. – is secondary.

Always strive for unity with the Flow of Nature, with the natural flow of things, with evolving market forces and with overall world dynamics.

Only hire people you trust and enjoy working with, no exceptions. Credentials and “importance” don’t matter in this regard.

Out-of-the-box thinking with constant innovation and adaptation.

Persistence with “never give up” attitude.

Always look for and try new synergies: between people, teams, partners, technologies, and features.

Happiness comes from giving. Give back to people, give back to society.

Tell us about how you started TurnKey Lender and your significant milestones so far. 

The founding idea was to boost fair lending globally by making the most intelligent and turn-key lending automation accessible and user-friendly even for small and unsophisticated lenders. To lower technology barrier for lending by offering AI-enabled, maximally automated and user-friendly tools to new and classic lenders and micro-lenders. The business evolved from UK/EU focused to global with clients in 28 countries on all continents.

First clients were in the UK and EU. With Brexit uncertainty and EU slow growth it was decided to move HQ to Singapore, the decision proved to be right in spite of personal, family and financial risks involved. Now company successfully grows and serves financial inclusion needs of rapidly growing SEA market. At the same time, recent company success in the US, Brazil, Sweden, Poland, Canada, promotes the Singapore image is the global center of fintech and the best AI-powered solutions for lending. TurnKey Lender received MAS Fintech Award in November 2016.

TurnKey Lender is the first of its kind fintech software that brings high-level bank-grade solution to the commodity type cloud-based solution. With this solution, even tiny lenders can compete with big players on technology and automation. Another innovation is the combination of artificial neural network based credit scoring with mobile-based scoring and classic credit underwriting approaches. With TurnKey Lender, a small or mid-size lender can start totally automated lending within several days. TurnKey Lender commoditized this type of solution bringing it to every micro-lender, to every local in-house financing company, lowering lending technology barriers and facilitating financial inclusion.

Can you give us a glimpse of what you will talk about at the 20 Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2018?

Growing internationally, getting customers from different continents and making them happy. Talent acquisition, team building and hiring approaches for fintech startups in Singapore.

Alternative scoring, mobile scoring and AI-based analytics for lending industry. Deep tech lending and AI sub-vertical in fintech.

Singapore Business Review’s 20 Hottest Startups of 2018 Panel Briefing will be held in Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre on 29 August. To know more about the event, click here.