Navadhan, a fintech startup focused on rural India, has raised INR 111 crore ($12.8 million) in its Series A funding round, led by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (NABARD) venture capital arm, NabVentures. According to a press release, Prime Ventures co-led the round, with participation from LNB Group, Varanium NexGen Fintech Fund, Gemba Capital, Faad, VC-Grid, and Anicut.
Initially targeting INR 80 crore, the funding round was oversubscribed, reaching INR 111 crore. Navadhan plans to use the funds to accelerate its growth, enhance its tech platform AceN, and expand its footprint while diversifying its loan offerings.
Founded in 2019 by Nitin Agrawal, Vijay Haswani, Anirudh Ramakuru, and Amit Biswal, Navadhan’s AceN provides end-to-end services such as customer sourcing, digital onboarding, underwriting, payments, and collections. The non-banking finance company (NBFC) also connects small businesses and microenterprises to banks, utilizing a proprietary data science-powered underwriting model to assess borrowers’ digital footprints and cash flow.
Navadhan’s fintech platform claims to have access to more than INR 700 crore in debt lines from over 25 banks and NBFCs through its AceN platform, which supports API integrations. The company is in 700 pin codes across five states: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Odisha.
“We are happy to find investors who share our mission of creating new wealth (Nava-dhan) for the rural-preneurs… We are excited to have NabVentures since rural MSMEs are our core customer segment. Also, happy to have support from LNB family office with a vantage of running seasoned businesses in India,” said Navadhan cofounder Nitin Agrawal.
Confirming the development in a LinkedIn post, Prime Ventures’ Shivani Kulkarni said, “We partnered with Navadhan Capital a year ago and have been consistently impressed by the team’s execution, even amidst challenging conditions in the financial services sector. It’s an honor to partner with you, Nitin Agrawal Vijay Haswani Anirudh Ramakuru Amit Ranjan Biswal.”
Meanwhile, NabVentures’s chief investment officer (CIO) Ashish Choudhary reportedly said the company has witnessed a “calibrated growth of 12X in the three years while maintaining good asset quality”.
The recent fundraising comes at a time when fintech remains the top sector for Indian investors. In 2024, startups in this sector secured the largest share of funding, raising over $2.5 billion across 162 deals. This strong momentum has continued into 2025.
