[Funding alert] Fintech lender Aye Finance raises Rs 80 Cr in debt funding

Gurugram-based financial technology company Aye Finance has raised Rs 80 crore in debt funding. The investor's name is still undisclosed by the company.

The fintech lender plans to utilise the latest infusion of funds for further growing its lending portfolio. 

This July, Aye Finance also secured a debt funding of Rs 55 crore from DCB Bank to grow its loan book and credit solutions. 

Founded in 2014 by Sanjay Sharma and Vikram Jetley, Aye Finance has disbursed over Rs 2,200 crore to 1,50,000 micro enterprises since its inception.

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In the last six months, it opened 67 new branches and expanded its presence to 171 branches in 18 Indian states/UT to further ease micro enterprises access to affordable credit. 

In the last financial year, it closed two equity rounds Series C and D, raised Rs 380 crore, and added CapitalG, Falcon Edge, and, MAJ Invest to its suite of accomplished investors.

The company has raised over Rs 480 crore in equity and approximately Rs 1,200 crore through a variety of debt instruments so far.

The firm received an amount of $15 million from Zurich-based responAibility Investments AG this year. 

Aye said it had disrupted the status quo in MSME lending by innovatively adopting the industry-clusters approach for credit assessment of the unbanked micro-enterprise segment. Within five years, Aye has transitioned from a startup to a mid-sized company having a team size of 2,500 employees.

Committed towards ensuring the overall growth of the micro enterprises, Aye has also launched its wholly owned “not-for-profit” company FAME to go beyond financing support. 

Recently, debt-financing startup that facilitates SME lending, Indifi Technologies (also from Gurugram), raised Rs 145 crore in Series C funding.

In August, Lendingkart, which provides short term working capital loans to SME borrowers, secured a fresh equity round of Rs 212 crore ($30 million) led by existing investors including Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd (“FFH”), Bertelsmann India Investments and India Quotient. 

Flipkart Co-founder Sachin Bansal also made a debt investment of Rs 50 crore in Mumbai-based digital lending platform Kissht through his second venture BAC Acquisitions, in July 2019.

(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)

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