CDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution (DFI) and impact investor, has closed a debt financing round of Rs 104 crore in Leap India Food and Logistics Pvt Ltd, an agricultural warehousing and logistics company.
Leap India will use the funds for building silos in low-income states as the company is looking to transform itself into an agri-silos and logistics platform, it said in a statement.
Algo Legal, a full-service law firm, was the legal advisor for Leap India, while CDC was advised by J Sagar Associates.
“CDC’s debt investment along with the previously raised equity investments from IFU (a Danish Sovereign Wealth Fund) and Neev Fund (managed by SBICap Ventures and backed by the government of UK) will allow us to expand and reach a critical size, while, at the same time, team up with strong, foreign institutional investors,” said Anurag Malempati, Founder, Leap India.
Leap India was founded in 2017 by Malempati, Rajeev Karthikeyan, and Nikhila Karthikeyan and is headquartered in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The company is engaged in the development of Food storage silo terminals and logistics Infrastructure for the private sector and the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
Leap India is currently developing 9 locations for Rs 700 Crore for the FCI under a public-private partnership mode. In 2020, IFU and Neev Fund had invested in Leap India in a Series B funding round, taking the total raised equity amount to Rs 200 crore.
Leap India joins CDC’s portfolio of more than 1,000 businesses in emerging economies which have total assets of as much as $9.3 billion. In 2020, CDC committed over $1.5bn to businesses in Africa and Asia and looks to invest as much as $1.75bn in 2021.
The group has also committed more than $1bn of climate finance over the last four years and in October, it had invested $70 million into the Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF), India’s first dedicated climate change fund.
“Through this commitment, our goal is to help scale responsible businesses that are creating climate mitigating solutions that will ensure communities are fed, economic opportunities increase, while amplifying long-term inclusive development in the society,” said Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of Asia at CDC.
