Aye Finance raises Rs 107cr in debt from BlueOrchard

Gurugram-based financial services start-up Aye Finance on Thursday said it raised Rs 107 crore as debt funding from the Switzerland-based impact investor, BlueOrchard.

BlueOrchard has been supporting Aye in its mission to enable the financial inclusion of micro enterprises since May 2017 and has taken a total exposure of Rs 290 crore in the lender for small and medium businesses.

Aye said it will utilise this latest round of funds to extend affordable and customised credit solutions to the base of the pyramid businesses of India and power their growth.

The fintech lender announced raising Rs 125 crore from the Dutch Development Bank FMO in November.

In the current year, Aye has raised over Rs 1,140 crore in debt and equity from leading names, including CapitalG, Falcon Edge, HDFC, ICICI, DCB Bank, other than FMO and BlueOrchard.

"This is the sixth round of funds we have received from BlueOrchard and I believe this demonstrates their comfort with and commitment to our business," Sanjay Sharma, MD and Founder of Aye Finance, said in a statement.

"Aye team has demonstrated the robustness of our cluster based lending approach having enabled the inclusion of close to 2 lakh micro enterprises using this approach," Sharma said.

Aye has been taking rapid strides in transforming micro enterprise lending in India since its inception in 2014 and has provided Rs 2,700 crore worth of credit to over 1,96,000 grassroots businesses, the company said.

( With inputs from IANS )