Aye Finance bags Rs 310 Cr in a new round led by British International Investment

Microlending platform Aye Finance has raised Rs 310 crore (approximately $37 million) in its Series F funding round led by  British International Investment with the participation of Waterfield Fund and existing backer A91 Partners. The latest equity round has come after a hiatus of more than three years for the company.

With this, the Gurugram-based company has secured around $200 million across rounds. The company last raised Rs 210 crore ($27.5 million) worth of Series E round led by CapitalG, Google’s venture capital fund.

While Aye Finance didn’t disclose its valuation in the new round, it was valued at around $250 million in the Series E round in June 2020. The company cornered Rs 1,043 crore worth of convertible debenture during the previous fiscal year, its annual report sourced from the website shows.

The firm provides financial services to micro and small businesses and has more than 398 branches operational in 22 states across India which majorly deals in manufacturing, trading, and service groups et al.

Aye Finance has three products — quasi mortgage loan, hypothetical loan, and add-on loan — ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,000,000 to micro or small enterprises with annual business turnover between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore.

A decade-old firm claims that it has disbursed over 7,600 crores of credit to over 5,76,000 businesses to date with a 60% repetition rate.

Aye Finance turned around its business in the last fiscal year as the company turned profitable with decent growth in scale. Its revenue from operations grew 44.5% to Rs 623 crore during FY23 and churned a hefty profit of Rs 54 crore as compared to the loss of Rs 46 crore in FY22.

Aye Finance competes with several NBFCs including Indifi which posted Rs 198 crore of revenue with a profit of Rs 5 crore in FY23, Axio (formerly Capital Float) whose revenue stood at Rs 219 crore with a loss of Rs 137 crore during the previous fiscal (FY23),  Lendingkart, Flexiloans and others.