BharatPe Raises Rs. 200 crores in debt from IIFL Wealth and Northern Arc. BharatPe, India’s leading financial services company for merchants, today announced that it has raised Rs. 100 crores each as debt from IIFL Wealth & Asset Management, one of India’s leading wealth and asset management companiesand Northern Arc Capital, one of India’s leading debt platforms.
BharatPe shared that with this seventh round of debt fund raise amounting to Rs. 200 crores (~US$ 28 mn), the company has raised a total of over Rs. 500 crores (~US$ 70 mn) in debt at competitive rates, in the year 2021. The company also shared that it plans to raise US$ 250 million in debt by the end of FY22.
Earlier this year, BharatPe had raised over Rs 300 crores from top venture debt funds (Alteria Capital, InnoVen Capital and Trifecta Capital), banks (ICICI Bank and Axis Bank) and NBFC (Northern Arc Capital). BharatPe’s lending vertical has grown exponentially over the last 1.5 years. The company had emerged as one of the largest B2B Fintech lenders in India during the pandemic last year. BharatPe has already disbursed over US$ 300 million in unsecured loans to over 2 lac merchant partners and has an outstanding loan book of over US$ 100 million.
Northern Arc is a platform that caters to the diverse credit requirements of under-served households and businesses, by providing efficient and reliable access to debt finance. With a proprietary integrated technology system called “Nimbus”, a customized credit underwriting approach and a tailored product suite, the company has raised over INR 95,000 crores for its clients.
Commenting on the debt fund raise, Suhail Sameer, Chief Executive Officer, BharatPe, said “We have witnessed a surge in demand for merchant loans, with multi-fold growth over the last one year. With the festive season coming up soon, we are committed to scale our lending vertical aggressively and have set a target of 10x growth in lending by FY23. It is a matter of pride for us that top wholesale lenders in the country have joined us in our journey to serve the credit needs of the underserved.
I would like to thank IIFL Wealth & Asset Management and Northern Arc Capital for backing BharatPe’s vision of empowering merchants. We have set a target to raise US$700 million in debt over the next two years to facilitate this credit growth and hence, will continue to explore partnership with domestic and international investors, ranging from banks, NBFCs, credit funds, large pension funds and impact investors / development financial institutions.”
“We are delighted to have started a lending relationship with BharatPe, an exciting company with a compelling value proposition for merchants in India. We look forward to this being the first step in a long and fruitful relationship”, said Pranob Gupta, Senior EVP, IIFL Wealth and Asset Management.
Added Nishit Sharma, Chief Revenue Officer, BharatPe, “This latest tranche of debt is a great validation for our business model. My sincere thanks to IIFL Wealth and Northern Arc for backing our vision to address the credit gap that small merchants face in India. We are committed to empower our merchant partners and intend to build a loan book of US$ 1 billion by March 2023. As we expand our offering across new cities, we will also be adding secured lending products such as Gold loans and Two-wheeler loans to our existing set of offerings for merchants.”
Recently, BharatPe forayed into the unicorn club with Series E fund raise of US$ 370 mn at a valuation of US$ 2.85 bn. BharatPe is now amongst the Top 5 most valued Fintech startups in India, and has one of the strongest cap tables for any start-up in India.
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