[Funding alert] Ummeed Housing Finance raises Rs 164 Cr from Morgan Stanley PE, others

Gurgaon-based Ummeed Housing Finance Private Limited (UHFL) raised Rs 164 crore ($23.5 million) equity funding in a Series D round, led by global investor Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, which acquired a minority stake.

This comes on the back of the $10 million equity raised by the housing finance company in September 2018. 

Ashutosh Sharma, Founder and Managing Director of Ummeed Housing Finance, said,

“This round of fundraising gives us clear visibility on the equity front before entering the next financial year. We will use these proceeds to further expand in new geographies and continue to strengthen our technology platform, with a focus on building state-of-the-art underwriting practices. Given the participation from larger growth equity investors, the company will look to aggressively double Asset Under Management (AUM) to Rs 1,000 Cr over the next 12-18 months.”

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Founded in 2016, Ummeed Housing caters to the informal and the low-income segment predominantly in Tier-II and Tier-III towns and operates through 26 hubs in Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi NCR, and Uttar Pradesh. The company has built out a fully digitised loan approval and disbursal process, which allows for a quick turnaround of customer requests.

It has successfully tapped a diversified mix of lenders, which includes domestic and foreign banks and financial institutions. While the company’s primary focus continues to be on the housing loan segment, it also offers secured business loans to the MSME sector.

Commenting on the investment Nirav Mehta, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, said,

“Affordable housing finance presents a large untapped opportunity, which Ummeed intends to address through its scalable operating model built with the right blend of technology, people and processes. We are excited to partner with UHFL in its next phase of growth.”

Existing investor LGT Lightstone Aspada also participated in the round.

“We are excited to welcome Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia as an investor in Ummeed. We believe that this investment is a strong testament to the company’s robust operating model and focus on asset quality and will help Ummeed scale as a distinctive player in the affordable housing finance space," added Kartik Srivastsa, Managing Partner at LGT Lightstone Aspada, and a current board member at UHFL.

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)