Deal Street: Google’s Investment Arm Backs MSME Lending Startup Aye Finance
Your weekly dose of startup deals.
Five Indian startups raised around Rs 300 crore in angel, seed or venture capital funding last week. These included companies engaged in lending to micro and small enterprises, hyperlocal delivery and cyber security.
CapitalG, an investment arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet, made a new bet in India. Its previous bets include Freshworks, Quikr, Practo, CarDekho, and CueMath.
CapitalG Leads $21.5-Million Investment In Aye Finance
Non-banking financial company Aye Finance raised Rs 147 crore ($21.5 million) in fresh funding from CapitalG, the growth-equity investment arm of Google parent Alphabet Inc. and existing investors SAIF Partners and LGT Impact Ventures. The company will use the funds to grow the business, it said in a statement.
Founded in 2014, Aye Finance provides working capital and business development loans to micro and small enterprises, across sectors such as manufacturing, trading, services and livestock. It operates in 10 states and has 73 branches.
“CapitalG’s access to Google expertise in scaling businesses using analytics and technology will strongly supplement our approach. “Sanjay Sharma, managing director at Aye Finance in a statement.
Aye Finance has so far disbursed more than Rs 500 crore to 60,000 small and medium businesses, the statement added.
Supply Chain Financing Startup Raises $14.8 Million
Supply chain financing startup CredAble raised Rs 100 crore ($14.8 million) in growth funding from private equity firm Alpha Capital.
The funds will be used expand its loan book, the company said in a statement. A part of the investment will also go towards strengthening the technology and team, it added.
Founded in 2017, the Mumbai-based company enables lending through its partner networks of financial institutions. It helps vendors receive early payments against approved invoices, and focuses on small and medium enterprises in the logistics and packaging materials space.
Besides the company has also applied for a non-banking finance licence, post which it will start lending from its own book.
CredAble said it has enabled over Rs 108 crore in supply chain financing across 41,000 transactions to over 9,000 vendors. Parle Products and Keys Hotels are two of its early corporate clients.
Hyperlocal Delivery Startup DailyNinja Raises $3 Million
Hyperlocal delivery startup DailyNinja raised around Rs 20 crore ($3 million) in fresh funding round led by new investor Saama Capital. Existing investor Sequoia Capital also participated in the round, the company said in a statement.
The startup said the funds will be used to grow its business to acquire more customers across Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram, and to expand its offerings.
“This round will help us achieve our objective of achieving 100,000 deliveries a day over the next 12 months,” Anurag Gupta, co-founder of DailyNinja, said.
The fresh round takes the total capital raised by DailyNinja to $4.5 million.
Founded in 2015, startup provides delivery service for milk and groceries. It follows a subscription model wherein it partners with local vendors to deliver groceries and uses a coupon system which customers use to make purchases from the vendors.
Others
Bengaluru-based cybersecurity services company Network Intelligence raised Rs 33 crore ($4.87 million) from private equity firm Helix Investments, the company said in a statement.
Interior design solutions marketplace HomeLane raised Rs 24 crore (around $3.5 million) from Brand Capital, the ad-for-equity investment arm of media firm Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL), a press statement said.