Rural household-focussed lender SarvaGram Solutions recently said it has closed its Series-C funding round at $35 million, led by venture capital fund Elevar Equity. Other investors that participated in the round were Elevation Capital, Temasek and TVS Capital Funds, according to a statement.
The company last raised $10 million in its Series-B round in February 2021, led by Elevation Capital and Elevar Equity. The Mumbai-based startup operates a data science-enabled platform that offers users personal loans, gold loans, consumer durable loans, farm loans and business loans.
SarvaGram also plans to launch durables commerce loans, equipment commerce, insurance and other investment solutions, according to its website. It currently claims a target market of over 80 million households in rural India.
“Their (SarvaGram’s) lending offering is unique and creates the foundation to offer a range of solutions (unlike the urban salaried individual with a payslip, assessing income for a rural borrower is tricky) given multiple income streams, variability in agricultural earnings, and limited paper trails. While collateral may be available, the documentation is non-standardised,” said Mridul Arora, partner, Elevation Capital.
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Arora added that SarvaGram currently has assets under management worth Rs 275 crore (about $33.2 million).
“We found the strong experience of the founders, the focus of SarvaGram on the underserved rural middle class households and the increasing availability of data which makes for better underwriting, a differentiated story,” said Anuradha Ramachandran, managing partner, TVS Capital Funds.
SarvaGram conducts business out of eight hubs and over 50 outlets across four states, and has over 250 franchise partners covering more than 8,000 villages. With the fresh capital infusion, it aims to add 75 more outlets in FY24. It also plans to grow its on-ground franchisees, SarvaMitra, three-fold across various states.
SarvaGram was founded by banking industry veterans Utpal Isser and Sameer Mishra in 2019. Isser headed rural business for ICICI Bank, where he worked for over 18 years. Mishra’s previous professional experience was spread across Bank of India, IDBI Bank, ICICI Bank, Fullerton India and Adani Capital.
“Sameer and I are extremely privileged and excited to on-board our new investors Temasek and TVS Capital Funds to SarvaGram, and are very thankful to Elevar Equity and Elevation Capital for their continued belief in us, our platform, and in the strength of India’s growing rural economy,” said Utpal Isser, Co-founder, MD, and CEO, SarvaGram.
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