Small business-focused digital lender Indifi Technologies Pvt Ltd has raised Rs 340 crore (around $45 million) in a mix of equity and debt financing, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
The fund raise is part of the company’s Series D fundraising which includes an equity round of Rs 140 crore and debt funding of Rs 200 crore, the company said.
CX Partners, and OP Finnfund Global Impact Fund I led the equity funding round, which also saw participation from participation from the CDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution, Accel, Omidyar Network, Flourish Ventures, Elevar Equity.
Meanwhile, Vivriti Capital, Norther Arc and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) are among other lenders led a Rs 165 crore debt funding round in Indifi Technologies and it will be raising Rs 35 crore more guaranteed by the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).
The funds will be used for customer acquisition, expanding to more sectors of MSMEs, and towards technology and product development, the digital lender added.
This Series D round takes Indifi’s total equity fund raise till date to more than Rs 350 crore.
Indifi said it is also looking to raise more in equity financing as a part of its Series D round and is in in advance talks with select global funds for participation.
The Gurgaon-based fintech company operates an online lending platform that offers business loans to small and medium enterprises (SME), (MSMEs) that have limited access to credit from traditional financial institutions. Indifi has enabled companies from sectors such as hospitality, travel, e-commerce, trading and retail businesses, it said. The company had recently collaborated with Facebook for providing small-ticket loans to MSMEs.
“Although India is home to numerous MSMEs, most of them lack access to funding. At Indifi, we address this problem by working closely with more than 100 data partners and a few top financial institutions, providing easily accessible loans digitally, and helping businesses grow in their journey,” said Alok Mittal, co-founder, chief executive officer, Indifi Technologies.
Mittal had told VCCircle in June that Indifi was looking at raising equity capital over the next 12 months.
Haitong India acted as an exclusive advisor to Indifi Technologies on this transaction, while Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co, Quillon Partners and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas were the legal advisors to Indifi, CX Partners and Finnfund, respectively.
Indifi had raised its first round of funding in September 2015, mopping up about $5 million (Rs 32.6 crore) from venture capital firm Accel, Elevar Equity and a bunch of individuals including Genpact founder Pramod Bhasin and Google's Rajan Anandan, according to VCCEdge.
In December 2016, Indifi raised about $10 million (Rs 66.5 crore) in a Series B funding round led by Omidyar Network, an investment firm founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
The company was founded in 2015 by Alok Mittal, an angel investor and former India chief of venture capital firm Canaan Partners, Siddharth Mahanot and Sundeep Sahi. Mahanot has previously worked with financial services companies such as Citibank and ICICI Bank. Sahi was chief product officer at Bharti SoftBank, a mobile-internet joint venture of Bharti Enterprises and SoftBank, before co-founding Indifi.
