Blume Ventures leads $1.5 Mn seed round in fintech startup Jai Kisan

Farmer-focused fintech startup Jai Kisan has raised $1.5 million in a seed round led by early stage investor Blume Ventures, Prophetic Ventures, Harshbeena Zaveri (NRB Bearings), Better Capital, Astarc Ventures, Sanjay Mariwala of OmniActive, and others.

The Mumbai-based startup will use proceeds to extend the financing services to more farmers, expand operations across different states and increase its loan book from Rs 2 crore to Rs 30 crore by the year-end

A brainchild of Arjun Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego, Jai Kisan was launched in March last year. It essentially works with lending partners to provide loans to farmers.  It also provide low cost and timely financing for agricultural equipment, dairy equipment, and other rural yield generational assets.

On average, Jai Kisan provides a low ticket size loan in the range of Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 at 12 per cent annual rate. In some cases, the loan may vary to Rs 1,50,000 to Rs 20,00,000.

According to Ahluwalia, Jai Kisan wants to work on securitisation, however, it will take time to get data sets and to build a good distribution network on the model, reports TOI.

The firm has applied for NBFC licence to lend it directly to farmers.

Jai Kisan has a presence in over 25 channel partner locations across 12 districts in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The firm has more than 60 vendor partners selling more than 1,500 SKUs on the platform.