Propelld raises $25 Mn debt for NBFC arm Edgro

Propelld, an education-focused lending platform, has secured $25 million debt funding for its wholly-owned NBFC subsidiary Edgro.

Edgro has raised the amount from nine lenders such as Credit Saison India Private Limited, AU Small Finance Bank, InCred Financial Services Limited and Northern Arc Capital Limited.

The company will utilize the funds to boost its reach and offerings.

Founded in 2019 by Bibhu Prasad Das, Victor Senapaty and Brijesh Samantaray, Propelld offers education loan financing solutions through Study Now and Pay Later products as well as Income Sharing Agreements (ISA) via the NBFC arm. The company also introduced collateral-free education financing.

The platform targets tier II and III cities where students face difficulties in securing finances from accredited lenders.

While Edgro started its operations in July 2023, Propelld has already raised nearly $40 million from the likes of WestBridge Capital, Stellaris Venture Partners and India Quotient to date. Its last fundraise worth $35 million materialized in February 2022.

As of the last funding round, Propelld had an annual loan disbursal run rate of Rs 600 crore.

Propelld registered a more than two fold jump in its operating revenue to Rs 75 crore in FY23 from Rs 33 crore in FY22.  As per startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, the firm’s losses also surged over 4X to Rs 26.72 crore in FY23 from Rs 5.96 crore in the previous year.

Propelld competes with the likes of Leap Finance, Financepeer, GrayQuest, Eduvanz, Auxilo, MPower Financing and Credenc. Interestingly, all these players cornered decent funding in the past three years. Leap Finance raised $75 million in June 2022 while Credenc raised $25 million from Capital India in July 2021. In December 2022, Eduvanz raised $12 million whereas GrayQuest and Mpower Finance scored $7 million and $150 million respectively in 2023. Earlier this year, Auxilo also raised $6 million in debt.