Mumbai-based rural fintech firm Jai Kisan has raised $50 million (INR 390 crore) in a combination of equity and debt on the first close of its ongoing Series B round, participated by existing and new investors. Jai Kisan will use the funds to expand its product suite and improve customer experience.
Blume Ventures led the round by investing INR 31.20 crore. Other participants included Mirae Asset Venture, Unitary Fund, and Cephalopod Teknik Fund, which each contributed INR 23.7 crore, INR 19.5 crore, and INR 13.4 crore, respectively. New investors GMO Venture Partners, Yara Growth Ventures and DG Daiwa Ventures participated.
The Series-B round seems to be proceeding, and Jai Kishan will probably collect more money. After allocation, the enterprise was valued at between $180 and 190 million dollars. Early in May 2021, the firm secured $30 million in Series-A funding. In October, it raised $3.3 million in debt financing. Northern Arc, Alteria, and MAS Financial contributed to the debt raise in the recent round.
“The opportunity struck us that Jai Kisan has to help enable better financing to rural Indians,” said George Roche of Yara Growth Ventures, a corporate venture capital arm of Norway-headquartered crop nutrition and agriculture company Yara International ASA.
Jai Kisan aims to become a consumer-experience-obsessed rural financial services brand
Fintech Startup Jai Kisan’s app, Bharat Khata, helps rural value chains digitize transactions, capturing insight into financial services’ needs, customer behavior and transaction footprint of rural businesses and individuals. Extended across the Bharat Khata network of retail storefronts, Jai Kisan’s POS financing Solution (BNPL) has seen traction, gaining 400 percent growth in customers in 3 months, said the company.
Fintech Startup Jai Kisan, which has Arjun Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego as cofounders, said it has implemented fully digital, low-cost farmer financing at point-of-sale that grants loans in 10 minutes.
“We will continue to build on the back of this support and create impact in this underserved space, leveraging creative new age solutions and keeping customer experience at the core of our beliefs,” said Ahluwalia, chief executive officer of Jai Kisan.
Fintech Startup Jai Kisan said its roadmap includes digitizing its users’ savings, insurance, and payment experience.
