CredAvenue raises $90 mn to scale up building infra to power debt markets

The funding round, led by Sequoia Capital India and co-led by Lightspeed, TVS Capital Funds and Lightrock, values the company at about $410 million

Fintech firm CredAvenue has closed ts first funding round of $90 million led by Sequoia Capital India and co-led by Lightspeed, TVS Capital Funds and Lightrock. The equity funding values the company at approximately $410 million. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to CredAvenue on the transaction.

CredAvenue is building infrastructure to power debt markets and offers solutions for discovery and execution across a wide range of products. To date, it has facilitated transactions worth about $9 billion through the platform, while engaging with over 1,500 institutional borrowers and 750 investors, touching 1 million end retail borrowers.

The funds raised in this round will be utilized towards expanding product capabilities and ramping up the platform’s technology and data science infrastructure. The company aims to invest heavily in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence over the next few months to significantly improve and expand its product offerings, across each of its sub platforms. The firm aims to transform from an assisted platform to a completely self-serve one, thereby improving the speed and autonomy of the platform users.

“Our objective is to revolutionize the debt market through technology and innovation,” said  Gaurav Kumar, founder and chief executive of CredAvenue. “We are the only enterprise debt platform offering all forms of debt, both in India and globally and this reflects in the scale of business done by our platform since inception.”

CredAvenue, which has been on a hyper-growth trajectory over the last year, today comprises over 350 employees spanning across different verticals - technology, sales, marketing, strategy, HR. It expects to double its headcount to 700 by the end of FY22. The company also plans on global expansion and inorganic growth through strategic acquisitions.  

“We are delighted to partner with them (CredAvenue team) in their vision to deepen the debt markets in India which currently remain underdeveloped at 65 per cent of GDP, well behind the global average of 150 per cent,” said Sakshi Chopra, MD, Sequoia India.

The company is one of the only fintech platforms with deep technology integrations across the top ten banks and mutual funds in India, representing loan assets worth over $1 trillion, that form the core of the financial services establishment in the country.

CredAvenue’s goal is to transform the debt markets globally, starting with India, by deepening access to capital for the growing enterprise sector to unlock significant economic growth. It does this by doing three things. First, creating a transparent marketplace for financial services firms on one side and enterprises on the other side to discover lending and borrowing opportunities. Second, developing a robust product suite and credit rating mechanism to enable stakeholders to find an appropriate product-risk fit and last, creating a robust and low friction UX that not only automates the execution of the transaction but also offers continuous portfolio monitoring.

The company said has already achieved market leadership across various debt categories including co-lending, loans, and bonds. It is simplifying access and servicing and helping consumers seamlessly navigate multiple offerings through a single portal.