Aye Finance picks up Rs 72 Cr debt funding from BlueOrchard

Lender to medium and small enterprises, Aye Finance on Tuesday announced that it has raised Rs 72 crore in debt funding from Swiss-based impact investor BlueOrchard Finance Ltd. According to the fintech lender, the funds will be used to further enhance its credit portfolio, reach out to India’s burgeoning MSMEs at the grassroots level and bring them under the fold of organised lending.

Since its inception in 2014, Aye Finance has disbursed over Rs 1,000 crore to over 80,000 micro enterprises in India. The company was started by two seasoned bankers – Sanjay Sharma and Vikram Jetley, and has created a technically enabled process that builds credit insights through a variety of available business, supply chain and psychometric data to offer a line of credit to these businesses.

The cooperation between Aye Finance and BlueOrchard began in May 2017, when the MSME lender raised Rs 27 crore from the global impact investor.

Commenting on the fundraise, Sanjay Sharma, MD and Founder of Aye Finance said,

“BlueOrchard has been supporting us in our mission of fostering inclusive growth since 2017. We at Aye are committed to transform the micro scale enterprise lending in India and the confidence BlueOrchard has shown in us strengthens our resolve even further."

Founded in 2001, BlueOrchard is a global impact investment manager, which provides investors around the world with premium investment solutions, including credit, private equity, and sustainable infrastructure, as well as debt and equity financing to institutions in emerging and frontier markets.

Present in four continents, BlueOrchard has invested more than $5 billion so far across 80 emerging and frontier markets, enabling tangible social and environmental impact. 

At present, Aye Finance has 104 branches in 100 cities and a team size of over 1,600 employees.

In June, the Gurugram-based lender became the first finance company in India to raise equity investment from CapitalG (formerly Google Capital). The $21.5 million, Series C equity investment also saw participation from its existing investors SAIF Partners and LGT. It had earlier received equity capital from Accion International.