Rural fintech startup Jai Kisan said it had raised $50 million (₹398.5 crores) in a mix of equity and debt in the first close of its ongoing Series B funding round.
According to a source with direct knowledge of the deal, this fundraising round was raised at a valuation of $200–240 million. According to the above-said source, the Mumbai-based startup is expected to raise an additional $30 to $50 million as part of the Series B investment round in a mix of equity and debt.
According to a statement from Jai Kisan, existing investors Blume Ventures, Arkam Ventures, Mirae Asset, and Snow Leopard Ventures joined new investors GMO Venture Partners, Yara Growth Ventures, and DG Daiwa Ventures in the current Series B fundraising round.
It added that Northern Arc, Alteria, and MAS Financial provided the debt funding.
Before this fundraising round, in May of last year, Jai Kisan secured a $30 million Series A investment led by Mirae Asset.
Jai Kisan is developing a full-stack financial services platform for rural people and businesses. It was founded in 2017 by Arjun Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego. Its app, Bharat Khata, aids rural businesses in digitizing transactions and gathering information about their client’s financial needs. According to Bharat Khata, there are 100,000 businesses on the app. At the point of sale (POS), Jai Kisan has also deployed its low-cost farmer finance, which speeds up the 10-minute loan process.
According to Jai Kisan, it has enabled over $220 million in credit annually and had a 4x growth over the past year.
Giving hundreds of millions of rural Indians access to financial services can radically alter their lives, according to Ryu Muramatsu, director and founding partner of the Japanese venture capital firm GMO VenturePartners.
“We were immediately struck by the opportunity that Jai Kisan has to help enable better financing to rural Indians,” said George Roche of Yara Growth Venture, the corporate venture capital arm of Norway-headquartered crop nutrition and agriculture company Yara International ASA.
“We will continue to build on the back of this support and create impact in this underserved space, leveraging creative new age solutions and keeping customer experience at the core of our beliefs,” said Arjun Ahluwalia, co-founder, and CEO, of Jai Kisan.
Veda Corporate Advisors and Investec India acted as financial advisors to Jai Kisan for the fundraising.
Fintech startups have been attracting both early stage and growth funding in recent weeks despite the liquidity squeeze in the market.
