Aye Finance raises Rs 77 cr in debt from Catalyst Trusteeship

Aye Finance, a financial service startup, has bagged Rs 77 cr ($10 Mn) in debt from Catalyst Trusteeship through its AAV Sarl and Masala Investment Sarl.

As per the filings of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Aye Finance has assigned 3,85,875 debentures each worth Rs 38.58 Cr to AAV Sarl and Masala Investment Sarl, leading up to Rs 17.17 Cr.

Before this round, in July 2020 the company had also raised Rs 125 Cr in debt from Germany-based impact investor Invest in Vision.

Founded by Sanjay Sharma and Vikram Jetley in 2014, Aye Finance caters to unbanked micro-enterprises of India by offering B2B loans. The company is currently offering its services in 14 states and plans to expand into Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Maharashtra in the coming years. The company has over 173 branches and 2,900 employees.

Till date the company has provided two lakh loans which amounts to Rs 2700 Cr to nearly 196K small scale businesses in the country. In the financial year 2020, the company doubled its revenues and increased its loan book from 1,047 Cr to 1,800 Cr, the company’s cofounder and managing director Sharma said.

Aye Finance has raised about $261.7 Mn to date in a mix of debt and equity. The lender is equity funded by CapitalG, SAIF Partners, Falcon Edge, LGT, A91 Partners, and MAJ Invest, and has debt lines from FMO, BlueOrchard, responsAbility, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC and many others. The company was valued at Rs 1,700 Cr ($224 Mn) in a Rs 210 Cr ($27 Mn) in Series E funding round from existing investors in June 2020.