BK Modi group company Spice Mobility Ltd is set to pick up a 30% stake in Luharia Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs peer-to-peer lending platform anytimeloan.in, for Rs 12.5 crore ($1.95 million) in an all-cash deal.
Spice Mobility is making the investment through its subsidiary Spice Digital Ltd, the company said in a stock-exchange filing, adding that it would be subscribing to compulsorily convertible preference shares of Luharia Technologies.
The transaction is expected to be closed within a month. Spice Digital will also have an option to make a follow-on investment of up to Rs 12.5 crore.
The deal is of strategic importance to Spice Digital, which provides financial services under Spice Money. “This is another step in the direction of Spice Mobility transforming itself into a digital services company. As part of the digital strategy, fin-tech will be one of our core areas of growth,†Spice Mobility chairman Dilip Modi stated.
“anytimeloan.in has demonstrated good initial traction in this space, and we are excited to partner with them to accelerate our goal of financial inclusion,†Modi added.
“The company will derive a huge strategic advantage from this investment by Spice, and enable us to leverage Spice Money’s strong network,†said Keerthi Kumar Jain, founder, Luharia Technologies.
According to VCCEdge, the data research platform of News Corp VCCircle, Luhari Technologies, which was incorporated in 2016, is backed by a bunch of angel investors, besides BetaPlus Capital Partners.
The company has a loan portfolio of around Rs 47 crore, according to the release.
Earlier this week, Spice Mobility had entered into an agreement to sell its wholly-owned subsidiary Omniventures Pvt. Ltd to Delhi-based Emma Innovation & Technology Pvt. Ltd. The sale marks its exit from the mobile handset retail business.
The company is expected to benefit from the recently introduced guidelines by the Reserve Bank of India for non-banking financial companies engaged in peer-to-peer lending in October.
