Venture Catalysts' floated Beams Fintech Fund joined as new investor in Progcap as the small and mid-size business-focused financing provider fetched $50 million (around Rs 400 crore) in its ongoing Series C round.
The fundraise also saw participation from existing investors including Google, Tiger Global, Creation Investments and Sequoia Capital, with participation from GrowX, CIBIL Chairman MV Nair and 9Unicorns, among others.
In June, Progcap had secured $40 million in its Series C funding round that valued the New Delhi-based company to $600 million, a three-fold jump from its previous valuation of $200 million.
Progcap, run by Desiderata Impact Ventures Pvt. Ltd, was founded by Pallavi Shrivastava and Himanshu Chandra in 2017. It aims to be a full-stack retailer-focused digital bank which enables capital flow across the supply chain to underserved retailers. Till date, the platform claims to have disbursed more than $1 billion in loans and has grown 4X annually. It has worked with over 700,000 SMBs.
“Beams has a built an interesting value add strategy towards companies and we are looking forward to working together with them on problems being solved by Progcap,” said Shrivastava.
“Supply chain is a deep problem in India with a credit gap of more than $300 billion and SME/MSME’s require access to capital through innovative financing solutions,” said Sagar Agarvwal, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Beams.
Beams was launched by Sagar Agarvwal, Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain.
The founding team of Beams had earlier invested in companies such as BharatPe, Dukaan, Flobiz, Esskay, Impact Guru, Suryoday, Klub, GetVantage, and LenDenClub.
In April, Beams Fintech Fund had completed the first close of its maiden growth-stage fund. The firm said it had received up to $36 million in commitments for the fund and is nearing completion of the documentation.
