SME lender Aye Finance is looking to raise $25-40 million to fuel expansion plans

A startup focused on lending to SMEs Aye Finance is looking to raise $25-40 million. The company is backed by SAIF Partners and State Bank of India and has raised $8million from Blue Orchard, a global impact investment manager. The company feels that it has leveraged 3 to 4.5 times its equity and the fresh infusion of funds would be necessitated by the first quarter of 2018. They have therefore started scouting for investors.

Aye Finance already has a bevy of investors, including some private equity funds based out of India, the US and Europe. The other known investors include Blue Orchard, Triodos and FMO. The last named is a development bank, operating out of Amsterdam.  

There is increasing attention from the investor community towards fintech startups dedicated to servicing the financial requirements of the SME sector. And capital is the basic raw material with which these startups can operate.

Sanjay Sharma, the MD of Aye Finance says, "We definitely require capital by the first quarter of the next financial year. What is fueling growth for most SME-focused players like us is that although demand for formal sources of capital had been high in this market, the supply-side challenges are slowly getting addressed by the new NBFCs.”  

There are other startups operating in similar space which have also benefitted from various levels of funding in recent times. Some of them include Capital Float, which is also backed by SAIF Partners; Vistaar Finance, is another startup that received funding recently.