New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital has led an investment of $110 million (Rs 817 crore) in SME financing platform OfBusiness.
Existing investors Matrix Partners India, Creation Investments, and Norwest Venture Partners also participated in the round which saw 73 employees and 12 angel investors sell stock worth $13 million, the Gurugram-based startup said in a statement.
“Through this infusion of capital, OfBusiness will expand the number of supply chains and regions it operates in. It also plans to make a few strategic investments and tuck-in acquisitions to penetrate deeper into existing supply chains and consolidate its dominance across them. The company will also invest heavily in expanding its tech offerings to the B2B ecosystem,” the statement added.
Over the last year, the company raised has $200 million in debt funds across its over 40 lending partners including IDFC First Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and State Bank of India.
OfBusiness said it operates with a gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of $1.5 billion.
Falcon Edge
A hedge fund and venture-stage investor, Falcon Edge Capital was founded in 2012 by Richard Gerson, along with Navroz D Udwadia and Ryan Khoury. It manages more than $2 billion in assets globally.
This week, the fund participated in a round of food delivery platform Swiggy.
In October, it picked up a stake in insurance-tech aggregator Policybazaar ahead of the company’s plan to go public in 2021-22.
In August, Falcon Edge invested in Avail Finance, a digital lender that seeks to provide instant collateral-free personal loans.
Last year in April, it co-led a Series A round in fintech startup Setu.
OfBusiness
OFB Tech Pvt Ltd, which operates OfBusiness, was founded in 2015 by Asish Mohapatra, Bhuvan Gupta, Ruchi Kalra, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Nitin Jain, Chandranshu and Biswajit Mishra.
The Bengaluru-based firm offers a single-window platform to provide secured and unsecured credit to SMEs for procuring raw material through its NBFC Oxyzo Financial Services.
The company raised its Series A funding of $5 million (Rs 34.2 crore) in early 2016 from Matrix Partners and some angel investors. In December 2016, it secured $11.1 million (Rs 75 crore) in a Series B round from Zodius Technology Opportunities Fund and existing investors.
In 2017, multi-stage investment firm Norwest Venture Partners invested around Rs 221 crore ($31 million then) in the Series D round. It was Norwest’s single-biggest investment in an Indian startup then.
In October 2017, OfBusiness also raised Rs 25 crore in debt funding from Kotak Mahindra Bank.