Exclusive: BharatPe raises Rs 100 Cr in debt funding from MAS Financial Services

BharatPe has raised Rs 100 crore in debt from homegrown nonbanking financial services firm MAS Financial Services Pvt Ltd and will be utilising this capital to offer loans to merchants in the country.

This is the eighth round of debt fundraise for the company in 2021 taking the total amount to Rs 600 crore. It last raised Rs 200 crore in debt funding from IIFL Wealth and Asset Management and existing investor Northern Arc Capital.

"Our recent debt raises will give us the raw material to build our merchant lending vertical more aggressively. As Indian businesses rebound and the impact of the pandemic fades away, we expect the lending vertical to grow multi-fold over the coming months," said Suhail Sameer, Chief Executive Officer, BharatPe.

The company claims to be facilitating loan disbursals of over Rs 300 crore to offline merchants every month.

BharatPe which recently also became a unicorn with a $370 million institutional fund raise from Tiger Global and others, plans to aggressively expand geographical coverage in India while launching multiple new lending products for merchants.

In total, it claims to have facilitated disbursals in excess of $400 million (Rs 2,800 crore) in unsecured loans to over 3 lakh merchants since the launch of its lending vertical.

"We are on track to build a loan book of $ 1 billion by March 2023 for our lending partners. We will continue to raise debt as well as explore partnerships with Indian and international investors including banks, NBFCs, large pension funds, credit funds as well as development financial institutions," said Nishit Sharma, Chief Revenue Officer, BharatPe.

This fund raise is well in line with the company's plans to raise around $250 million in debt by the end of financial year 2022.

Earlier this month BharatPe and Centrum Financial Services consortium also finally received the small finance bank license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) paving the way for the fin-tech firm into the mainstream banking arena. The new entity — Unity Small Finance Bank — will take over the assets and liabilities of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank.