This marks BharatPe’s seventh debt fundraise, taking the total debt raised by the company to over ₹500 crore (or roughly around $70 million).
The company plans to raise a total of $250 million in debt by the end of fiscal year 2021-2022 (FY22).
Earlier this year, BharatPe had raised over ₹300 crore from top venture debt funds including Alteria Capital, InnoVen Capital and Trifecta Capital. Leading banks, including ICICI Bank and Axis Bank along with Northern Arc Capital also participated in its fundraise.
BharatPe has already disbursed over $300 million in unsecured loans to over 200,000 merchant partners and has an outstanding loan book of over $100 million.
“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,” said Suhail Sameer, the newly appointed chief executive officer of BharatPe.
Sameer also added that BharatPe has set a target to raise $700 million in debt over the next two years to facilitate its credit growth.
“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 executive vice president, IIFL Wealth and Asset Management.
Earlier in August, BharatPe forayed into the unicorn club with its Series E fundraise worth $370 million at a valuation of $2.85 billion.
BharatPe was expected to use the fundraise to capitalize the distressed Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank, in partnership with Centrum Financial Services. In June, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had cleared the takeover of PMC Bank by a joint consortium of Centrum and BharatPe.
“We are pleased to partner with a unicorn like BharatPe as it expands its merchant network and diversifies into lending. We believe that technology, coupled with the right financial products, can empower underserved small enterprises, merchants and households. We hope to deepen and widen this partnership across products, offerings and investor segments,”said Bama Balakrishnan, chief operating officer, Northern Arc.
In an earlier interaction with Mint, BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover said that the company plans to scale its overall financing to $3 billion by March 2023 with an outstanding loan book of $1 billion.