Indian NBFC Avanti Finance raises $24m
Avanti Finance, an Indian technology-led non-banking finance company (NBFC) has received USD 24m in equity funding from Rabo Partnerships and IDH Farmfit Fund, with re-ups from Oikocredit and NRJN Trust.
Rabo Partnerships is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rabobank Group that focuses on agriculture finance, while IDH Farmfit is a EUR 100m (USD 109m) impact fund aimed at enhancing access to affordable finance for smallholder farmers. The fund is supported by IDH, the Netherlands-based sustainable trade initiative.
Social impact investor Oikocredit provided a USD 26m debt-plus-equity financing package for Avanti in 2021 alongside Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nomura, and the family office of Pratul Shroff. NRJN Trust is the family office of Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani. It is unclear when it previously backed Avanti.
Avanti’s broad objective is to provide frictionless access to affordable and hyperlocal credit products to smallholder farmers in India, enabling them to build sustainable livelihoods. Its mission statement is to make financial services affordable and accessible for India’s next 100m households. Smallholder farmers account for 86% of the agrarian economy yet they are underserved by the financial sector.
The business is based on a hyperlocal, hyperflexible digital spine capable of addressing populations at scale. Using a set of application protocol interfaces (APIs) that sit within the Avanti app, the company works with more than 65 partners to create products that match customer cash flows and spending habits, in part by analysing crowdsourced data.
More than 180 customised loan products have been created to date with social enterprises, financial institutions, business correspondents, agri-tech players, and farmer-producer organisations. Avanti’s capital-light network exclusively serves rural and semi-urban areas; 60% of borrowers are new-to-credit (NTC) and 90% are female.
“This investment will support ongoing investments in our deep tech platform to develop fit-for-purpose hyperlocal credit products, amplify our partnership network that spans 22 states and accelerate co-lending programs with other financial institutions,” said Avanti CEO Rahul Gupta.
“Avanti has done the initial heavy lifting to establish a digital delivery model with our unique paperless and presence-less model with a strong emphasis on cashless payments, served 250,000 households, and now we are ready to make the leap to serve a million households with a targeted AUM [assets under management] of INR 20bn (USD 244m) in the next 18-24 months.”
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.