Non-banking financial company Samunnati Financial Intermediation & Services Pvt. Ltd has raised Rs 150 crore ($23.5 million) in a Series C round of funding from Swiss impact investor responsAbility and existing investors Elevar Equity and Accel Partners.
As part of the investment, Akshay Dua, responsAbility’s Asia Pacific head of private equity for agriculture and food sectors, will join the board of Chennai-based Samunnati.
“Agriculture and food is one of the key focus sectors for responsAbility globally and this is the first investment from our recently closed food and agriculture private equity fund,†Dua said in a press release.
Anil Kumar SG, founder and chief executive officer of Samunnati, said the lender will benefit from responsAbility's global development finance experience to make agricultural value chains operate at a higher equilibrium.
Incorporated in 2014, Samunnati provides secured and unsecured loans to farmers, farmer producer organisations, community-based organisations and agricultural enterprises. The company began active operations as an NBFC from July 2016.
In a span of two years of full-fledged operations, Samunnati has disbursed over Rs 500 crore in credit, according to the release.
In 2015, Samunnati had raised $1.93 million in a Series A round of funding from Elevar Equity. In February 2017, the company raised $4.4 million in a Series B round of funding led by Accel India and with participation from Elevar Equity and Sify founder Rajasekhar Ramraj, according to VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle.
Investment bank Unitus Capital acted as the exclusive financial adviser for the latest transaction.
Among the recent funding deals in the NBFC space, multi-stage private investment firm Norwest Venture Partners led a $32 million (Rs 200 crore) funding round in Ess Kay Fincorp Ltd and BanyanTree Growth Capital II made an undisclosed equity investment in Chennai-based Mahaveer Finance India.
