Home finance lending fintech Vridhi Home Finance has raised Rs 150 crore ($18 million) in its series A funding round led by Elevation Capital.
"Some investment will go into technology development and we are also expanding our branches to other areas as well...We will also be hiring," Sunku Ram Naresh, co-founder and chief executive officer of Vridhi Home Finance told Moneycontrol.
The Bengaluru-based startup will be expanding its branches by adding 25-30 more within Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana in the next 12-18 months.
"Each branch will require typically 7-8 people for a company of our size and we will be looking to hire across roles for these branches...we will be looking at opening new branches from tier I to tier IV cities," Naresh added.
Vridhi was founded in 2022 by Naresh along with
co-founders Sandeep Arora (COO) and Sunil Mehta (CFO). The firm aims to create a channel for secured housing loans, serving salaried and self-employed individuals in tier 2/3 cities across India. The firm's founding team comes with a total experience of 75 years in the banking and finance sector.
The firm will be looking to raise debt funding from banks and financial institutions.
"This funding will also help us secure our debt franchise going ahead...We just started our business and with a decent size of capital, it will help us secure debt from multiple renowned banks," Naresh said.
According to data shared by the startup, the housing finance segment in India is highly underpenetrated and showcases headroom for growth with the AUM on housing loans at around $300 billion, which grew at a CAGR of 12 percent over FY 18-21.
Vridhi focuses on providing secured housing loans with an average ticket size of Rs 6-8 lakh to salaried and self-employed individuals.
The firm has around 350-400 customers and is presently adding around 80-90 new customers every month. It is bootstrapped to date, before securing investment from Elevation Capital.
“India’s mortgage market remains underpenetrated compared to several other emerging and developing economies at just ~11% of GDP, indicating a significant headroom to grow. Vridhi is democratizing access to credit for a massively underserved population, thereby bolstering financial
inclusion," said Mridul Arora, Partner, Elevation Capital.
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