ICICI Bank, India’s second-largest private-sector bank, has invested in SLO Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates the fraud detection- and prevention-based financial technology startup AdvaRisk.
In a stock-exchange filing, ICICI Bank said it would invest Rs 2.33 crore ($312,292 at current exchange rates) in AdvaRisk by subscribing to equity shares and cumulative compulsorily convertible preference shares.
Following this investment, ICICI Bank will hold a 7% stake in the fintech firm on a fully diluted basis. Per VCCircle calculations, this values AdvaRisk around $4.46 million (around Rs 33.28 crore).
AdvaRisk was set up in 2016 by Vishal Sharma and Rahul Metkar. It operates an automated and artificial intelligence-driven platform to prevent and detect fraud, as well as the recovery of corporate loans.
According to its website, its products include AdvaSmart, a due diligence and monitoring platform; AdvaNPA, which maximises recovery by highlighting undisclosed information and unidentified patterns associated to a defaulter; and CorpData, which provides real-time access to structured financial information of companies.
Per the ICICI filing, AdvaRisk reported revenue of Rs 1.2 crore and Rs 2.9 crore for 2018-19 and 2019-20, respectively.
The infusion by ICICI comes after AdvaRisk raised around Rs 4.96 crore in a seed round in September last year. The round was led by early-stage venture capital firm Sprout Venture Partners.
Other participants in the round included SEA Fund, former Axis Bank deputy managing director Varadarajan Srinivasan and Sharad Bhatia, former managing director at private equity firm Multiples Alternate Asset Management.
ICICI Bank has made some other investments and acquisitions over the last few years. In August, for example, it upped its stake in the GIFT City-based India International Exchange Ltd by investing Rs 4.46 crore. The move raised its shareholding from 7.7% to 9.9%.
In March, ICICI Bank invested a little over Rs 51 crore in education financing company Auxilo Finserve Pvt. Ltd. It picked up a 9.9% stake in the company in exchange for its investment.
