Rural credit startup SarvaGram on Thursday said it has bagged Rs 565 crore ($67 million) in its Series D round of funding, led by Peak XV Partners, bringing its total capital raised to date to Rs 950 crore ($113 million).
The round also saw participation from existing shareholders Elevar Equity, Elevation Capital, Temasek and TVS Capital.
SarvaGram’s funding announcement comes less than two weeks after DealStreetAsia reported that Temasek is in advanced talks to re-up in SarvaGram, nearly two years after it first invested in the startup.
Established in 2019 by veteran rural bankers Utpal Isser and Sameer Mishra, SarvaGram doles out farm, housing, gold, and consumer durable loans to the emerging middle-class in India’s remote areas besides providing farm-mechanisation and farm-equipment rental services. It provides loans of up to Rs 25 lakh ($30,000) with tenures ranging from 36-72 months, according to its website. SarvaGram also provides insurance services in rural areas.
The startup claims to have covered over 20,000 villages in India so far and to have served over 1 lakh rural households in the country across states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Telangana.
In January 2023, Temasek entered SarvaGram’s captable after participating in its $35 million Series C funding round alongside Elevar Equity, Elevation Capital (earlier known as SAIF Partners), Temasek, and TVS Capital Funds. DealStreetAsia was the first to report this development in September 2022.
SarvaGram’s funding comes amid rising investor appetite for big-ticket transactions. Some of the prominent megadeals in Jan-Sept 2024 period were closed by Zepto ($665 million & $340 million), Flipkart ($350 million), DMI Finance ($334 million), Meesho ($275 million), FirstCry ($227 million), Pharmeasy ($216 million), Physics Wallah ($210 million), LensKart ($200 million), OYO ($175 million), Whatfix ($125 million) and Purplle ($120 million), Rapido ($120 million), Drip Capital ($113 million), among others.