Aye Finance, an MSME sector lender, has raised ₹210 crore in Series E funding led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund. The round also saw participation from Aye’s existing investors LGT Lightstone, Falcon Edge Capital, A91 Partners and MAJ Invest.

With this investment, Aye’s total equity funding since inception exceeds ₹690 crore, the company said in a statement.

“Difficult times are a true test of a good lender and we have already started showing significant improvements in customer repayments in the past months. Our loans are underwritten with cluster insights and this continues to assure good repayment behaviour in our portfolio,” Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director at Aye Finance, said.

“This equity investment will further add to liquidity that will enable us to emerge strong from the Covid crisis and continue to benefit millions of micro-enterprises across India,” he added.

Since inception in 2014, Aye has disbursed ₹3,000 crore. The lender provides mortgage, hypothecation and term loan services to micro enterprises.

“We first invested in Aye in 2016 and over the years we have seen them grow into an institution with strong focus on impact and scalability. The relevance of Aye in the post-Covid economy in serving the financing needs of micro businesses is significant,” Kartik Srivatsa, Managing Partner of LGT Lightstone Aspada, said.

Published on June 24, 2020

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