Vivriti fund backing women and MSMEs bags $20M commitment from Development Bank of Austria
The investment is part of OeEB’s focus on impact investing in developing economies, especially those aligned with green finance, SME development, and gender inclusion.
Vivriti Asset Management has secured a $20 million commitment from the Development Bank of Austria (OeEB) for its Vivriti India Retail Assets Fund (VIRAF), bolstering the fund’s capital base to $165 million as it targets a final corpus of $250 million.
The latest investment is part of OeEB’s focus on impact investing in developing economies, especially those aligned with green finance, SME development, and gender inclusion.
Launched in March 2023 at GIFT City, VIRAF is an asset-backed securitization (ABS) fund designed to scale financing for small-ticket retail and MSME loans. A majority of the borrowers supported through VIRAF-backed loans are women.
"OeEB’s capital will directly strengthen our ability to extend funding to high-quality financial institutions that are empowering women and small businesses across India. At VAM, we continue to innovate in structured credit to bridge the country’s credit gap while delivering risk-adjusted returns to investors," Vineet Sukumar, Founder and Managing Director, Vivriti Asset Management said.
According to the company, the fund has disbursed more than $200 million to date through 25 non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), reaching over 350,000 individuals and more than 100,000 MSME borrowers. Over 75% of those borrowers are women.
Vivriti plans to cumulatively invest over $1 billion in retail ABS over a ten-year period. VIRAF joins a list of funds managed by Vivriti that span infrastructure, energy, logistics, financials, SaaS, and services sectors, with total commitments of about $660 million across eight funds.
With OeEB’s participation, the fund now includes several global institutional investors, including British International Investment (BII), Calvert Impact, M&G Catalyst, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
"Promoting small and medium-sized enterprises and financial inclusion as well as gender equality are among the focus areas of our strategy 2024-2028. Therefore, we are very pleased to provide additional financing for VIRAF and look forward to contributing to India's inclusive economic growth," Sabine Gaber, Member of the Executive Board, Development Bank of Austria (OeEB) said.