[Funding alert] Kinara Capital secures Rs 52 Cr from Impact Investment Exchange for women entrepreneurs

Small business lender Kinara Capitalon Monday announced securing Rs 52 crore from Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) for the advancement of women entrepreneurs in India.

This investment fund will be disbursed via Kinara Capital’s established HerVikas discounted loan programme to an estimated 2,500+ women-owned small businesses.

The HerVikas programme enables ‘her progress’ with an automatic upfront discount of one percent on interest costs on fast, collateral-free business loans in the range of Rs 1 lakh to 30 lakh. The discounted loan programme for women-owned MSMEs is available in 90+ cities across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Puducherry (UT).

According to the official statement, the expected impact of the partnership between IIX and Kinara Capital will generate an incremental income of Rs 320 crore for women entrepreneurs.

Founded in 2011, Kinara Capital is addressing the inequitable credit gap and related systemic issues by providing access to formal credit, industry knowledge, and personalised customer service to women entrepreneurs. 

Speaking about the new development, Hardika Shah, Founder and CEO, Kinara Capital, said,

“The investment from IIX’s Women’s Livelihood Bond Series in our HerVikas programme brings fresh impetus to the need of financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs. Empowering women has a strong impact on improving the quality of life for families and achieving gender parity can add 27 percent to India’s GDP.”

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“IIX is a trailblazer in gender lens investing and we are immensely honored to be a part of its ecosystem to create sustainable impact by advancing women entrepreneurs,” she added.

Commenting on the investment, Professor Durreen Shahnaz, IIX’s CEO and Founder, said,

“Having supported Kinara in one of their initial equity rounds and having watched the company grow steadily and with impact for nearly a decade, we are proud to invest in Kinara Capital again from the proceeds of the third tranche of the Women’s Livelihood Bond Series."

"At a time when COVID-19 caused governments, investors, and businesses to turn inward and leave behind millions of underserved women, women-led enterprises like Kinara Capital are spearheading COVID-resilience from the ground up by accelerating financial inclusion and empowering women entrepreneurs to be part of the solution for economic recovery," added Durreen.

The Women’s Livelihood Bond 3 (WLB3) is part of the $150 million Women’s Livelihood Bond (WLB Series), a series of innovative debt securities that create sustainable livelihoods for over three million women across developing countries. The WLB3 is supporting women-focused enterprises in India, Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Philippines that are directly supporting women to respond to, recover from, or rebuild their livelihoods in the COVID-19 pandemic.