Fintech lender Aye Finance on Wednesday raised about Rs 87 crore (about $10.7 million) in debt from Swiss impact investor BlueOrchard, which has been investing in the company since May 2017.
The company, backed by the likes of Google's venture capital arm CapitalG, plans to deploy these funds to extend affordable and customized credit solutions to businesses in India, it said in a press statement. The lending focus is likely to be in tier-II cities and beyond.
“We will continue to expand our geographical footprint to reach out to a larger population of micro enterprises into the folds of formal economy. We are also working with the World Bank and designing a credit product specifically for women micro entrepreneurs to ease their access to credit and helping them overcome the biases they have been facing in raising funds for their businesses,” the company said.
With this fundraise, the lender has reached a milestone of raising Rs 700 crore in debt out of the targeted fundraise of Rs 1,500 crore for FY23, it said in a statement.
Aye Finance raised about Rs 65 crore in debt funding from Geneva-based market access platform Symbiotics Investments in September this year. In March, it raised about Rs 75 crore in debt financing from Triple Jump BV and Northern Arc.
The lender is also backed by equity investors including Elevation Capital, Falcon Edge, A91 Partners, LGT and MAJ Invest.
Founded in 2014, Gurugram-based Aye Finance is a platform which provides business loans to small and micro enterprises across India. It claims to have deployed advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions in most of its critical business processes.
Founded in 2001 by initiative of the United Nations, BlueOrchard is a global impact investment manager focused on generating impact for communities and the environment. It offers impact investment solutions across asset classes, in emerging and frontier markets with investors.
