Rural Fintech startup Jai Kisan raises Rs 30 cr from NABARD-backed fund

Jai Kisan, a Mumbai-based fintech platform, on Tuesday, said it has raised Rs 30 crore funding from Arkam Ventures with the participation of a fund backed by NABARD.

Founded by Arjun Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego graduates of Texas A&M University - who quit their jobs in private equity and restructuring firm, respectively, to move to India, Jai Kisan is a fintech platform for rural emerging markets that facilitates a suite of financial products to rural customers.

In a statement, the platform said it has "closed a Rs 30 crore Pre-Series A round of funding led by Arkam Ventures (previously known as Unitary Helion) with participation from NABVENTURES Fund I (backed by NABARD)".

Jai Kisan is NABVENTURES' first investment.

"The fresh round of fundraising saw participation from existing investors including Blume, Prophetic Ventures and Better Capital. The round also saw participation from prominent leaders in finance and agri like an affiliate of The Chatterjee Group (TCG), Rajiv Sahney (New Vernon Capital), Sanjay Mariwala (Omniactive) and others," it said.

Over the past 6 months, Jai Kisan has disbursed over Rs 50 crore in loans of top tier credit quality to a diverse set of 5,500-plus borrowers from various income groups across 10 states.

Jai Kisan's financial products and robust technology platform are able to onboard a diverse set of borrowers varying from a lady farmer with minimal documentation in a tribal village with no electricity in the Nilgiris to a large grape producer and exporter in Nashik.

"Adriel and I started Jai Kisan to facilitate rightly priced credit (and other financial services) to rural borrowers.

"It didn't make sense to us that a poor woman borrower in the middle of nowhere is expected to generate over 24 per cent IRR on a small 50K type loan (and that too from a formal lender!), while in our previous jobs (private equity) we were expected to generate a meagre 12 per cent IRR," said Arjun Ahluwalia, Co-Founder and CEO of Jai Kisan.

Today, Jai Kisan provides cheap financing options for equipment, input and invoice financing for rural borrowers accessible at their fingertips or at any of Jai Kisan's partners' tech-enabled locations.

G R Chintala, Chairman, NABARD, remarked, "We appreciate the efforts of Jai Kisan to emerge as a frontline agri/rural fintech player on the strength of its tech prowess, low cost of operations along with reasonable security levels".Press Trust of India