India's Grameen Koota raises $9.6m from VCs
Indian's Grameen Financial Serivces (GFS), also known as Grameen Koota, has raised INR532 million ($9.6 million) from Creation Investments, Incofin Investment Management and MicroVentures in its third round of funding.
Headquartered in Bangalore, GFS is a registered non-banking financial company (NBFC) engaged in the microfinance sector. Its offers financial services to the rural poor, low income households and, in particular, women. It has over 350,000 members in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Creation's portion of the investment came to INR375 million, with the rest contributed by Incofin and MicroVentures. GFS says investment comes just days after the company received INR210 million in debt funding from a fund managed by Deutsche Bank.
"The newly infused funding will add to the growth of the company and help GFS achieve its target of reaching out to over one million poor and low income households," Sain Suresh Krishna, managing director of GFS, said in a statement. "The capital will also strengthen our vision towards extending and expanding our loan operations to other neighboring states."
India's NBFCs have proven be popular among private equity investors. This is partly because they provide flexible financing to Indian entrepreneurs who might not be eager to sell equity stakes. Just last month ChrysCapital Partners has purchased a 10% stake in Au Financiers for INR1.2 billion.
Other notable private equity players in this space include KKR which set up its own NBFC in 2009 and Warburg Pincus which acquired a 68.3% stake in Future Capital from Pantaloon Retail across two transactions for INR7.4 billion.
More on South Asia
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.