BharatPe has raised Rs 100 crore in debt from MAS Financial Services and will be utilising this capital to offer loans to merchants in the country.
“Our recent debt raises will give us the raw material to build our merchant lending vertical more aggressively. As Indian businesses rebound and the impact of the pandemic fades away, we expect the lending vertical to grow multi-fold over the coming months,” said Suhail Sameer, Chief Executive Officer, BharatPe.
The company claims to be facilitating loan disbursals of over Rs 300 crore to offline merchants every month. BharatPe also became a unicorn with a $370 million institutional fund raise from Tiger Global and others, plans to aggressively expand geographical coverage in India while launching multiple new lending products for merchants.
This is the eighth round of debt fundraise for the company in 2021 taking the total amount to Rs 600 crore. It last raised Rs 200 crore in debt funding from IIFL Wealth and Asset Management and existing investor Northern Arc Capital. In total, it claims to have facilitated disbursals in excess of $400 million (Rs 2,800 crore) in unsecured loans to over 3 lakh merchants since the launch of its lending vertical.
“We are on track to build a loan book of $ 1 billion by March 2023 for our lending partners. We will continue to raise debt as well as explore partnerships with Indian and international investors including banks, NBFCs, large pension funds, credit funds as well as development financial institutions,” said Nishit Sharma, Chief Revenue Officer, BharatPe.
