Aye Finance raises Rs 125 crore debt from German impact investor

Gurugram-based digital lending startup Aye Finance has raised Rs 125 crore in debt funding from Invest in Vision, a German impact investor. The debt round comes on the back of an equity round of Rs 210 crore the company closed from its existing investor CapitalG.

The company would use the funds for onward lending to small businesses, its core customer base, Aye Finance said in a statement.

“Access to adequate capital has never been more significant than in these current times of economic disruptions and we are committed to supporting these grassroots business through these trying times as well with our loan offerings,” Aye Finance managing director Sanjay Sharma said.

Since its inception in 2014, the fintech lender has disbursed over Rs 3,000 crore to over two lakh micro-enterprises, the company said.

Aye has created a technically enabled process that builds credit insights through a variety of available business, supply chain and predictive AI-driven data models to offer a line of credit to the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ businesses and power their growth.

Invest in Visions was founded by Edda Schröder in 2006 to offer institutional and retail investors access to impact investments. They specialise in investments in sustainable agriculture, social enterprises and social-impact lending.

Aye has, so far, raised over Rs 690 crore in equity and over Rs 2,000 crore in debt through various instruments.