Aye Finance rakes in Rs 233 Cr Series D round; turned profitable in FY18

Raise it like Aye Finance. Be it equity or debt, the firm has become exemplary to others in MSMEs lending space. After raising $22 million in its Series C round led by CapitalG, now the firm has closed Rs 233 crore worth Series D round.

This takes the total funding of the company to Rs 960 Cr in a mixed round of equity and debt since its inception in 2014.

The latest round was led by Falcon Edge, a New York-based hedge fund that put in Rs 155.53 crore for 36.4 lakh equity shares at a price of Rs 426.7 each.

While existing investor Capital G invested Rs 33.32 crore, LGT Capital and MAJ Invest infused Rs 29.2 crore and Rs 15.57 crore respectively, shows RoC filing with MCA accessed by Entrackr (hat tip: paper.vc).

In October 2018, the firm was reportedly in talks with the aforementioned investors to raise around Rs 300 crore at a valuation of Rs 500 crore.

Apart from the equity financing round, Aye Finance also raked in Rs 20 crore in debt from Karvy Capital.

In another positive development, Aye Finance became profitable in FY18, as per the company's financial statement. The revenue for the fiscal year took a 3.1X jump to Rs 82.23 crore from Rs 26.16 crore in FY17.

The expenses took a leap of 2.4X from Rs 33.35 crore to R79.92 crore. These two factors helped the company turn its Rs 7.19 crore worth loss in FY17 to a Rs 2.3 crore profit in FY18.

Founded in 2014 by Sanjay Sharma and Vikram Jetley, Aye Finance provides customer-centered financial services to micro and small businesses. With over 100 branches in 11 states across India, it claims to have disbursed over Rs 1,250 Cr to over 100,000 customers.