Venture debt and alternative credit platform BlackSoil Capital on Thursday said it has invested growth capital of over $4.5 million (around Rs 34.2 crore) in three startups -BluSmart Mobility, BigHaat and LoanTap.
Early this year, the Mumbai-based debt investor had backed SME-focused fintech firm LivFin investing $2 million (Rs 14.8 crore).
“All our new partners have unique value propositions and business models which have garnered the support of marquee institutional investors and made them an attractive investment opportunity for BlackSoil as well," said Ankur Bansal, Co-Founder and Director of BlackSoil.
He added that Blu-Smart and BigHaat are BlackSoil’s foremost bets in the sustainability focused segments namely e-mobility and agri-tech.
BluSmart was founded by Anmol Jaggi and Punit Goyal in 2019. The ride hailing platform operates on all electric cars only in Delhi-NCR region.
The firm is backed by a clutch of marquee equity investors including bp Ventures, Mayfield Fund, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalyst and several other high-net worth-individuals (HNIs), having secured $36 million till date.
Meanwhile, Bengaluru-based BigHaat was set up in 2015 by Sateesh Nukala, Sachin Nandwana and Kiran Vunnam with a direct-to-farmer model aiming to digitise the agriculture value chain by leveraging science, data and technology. It also leverages data to provide crop advisory services relating to growth and disease related issues.
In January, the platform had raised Rs 100 crore (around $13.5 million) led by JM Financial Private Equity and existing investor Beyond Next Ventures. Other investors of the firm include Ankur Capital and RockStud Capital.
Its third bet LoanTap, launched by Satyam Kumar and Vikas Kumar in 2016, is a homegrown, hyper-growing digital lender with its own NBFC, which aims to provide a seamless consumer experience from application to disbursal.
The Pune-based startup’s tech platform ‘LT-Flow’ enables lenders to source, share risk (co-lend), underwrite, plug-in capital and manage loans.
Last month, LoanTap had announced partnership with Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) ArkaFincap Ltd. (Arka). Besides, it has also joined hands with RBI registered NBFC, MAS Financial Services Ltd, in a co-lending model for the salaried and MSME segment.
Around September 2019, the platform had raised $12 million (around Rs 85.08 crore) in a Series B round led by Avaana Capital.
BlackSoil, which manages an alternative credit platform, has deployed over $215 million across more than 100 deals.
In January, the homegrown venture debt firm said it had invested $80 million in 20 transactions in 2021, registering a 2.5 times growth in terms of value and 1.8 times growth in terms of volume of investments over 2020. Read more: (https://www.vccircle.com/venture-debt-firm-blacksoil-s-investments-jump-2-5x-in-2021)
Some of its major investments in startups include business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce startup Udaan, marketplace for construction materials Infra.Market, and beauty marketplace Purplle.
