Ambit Finvest raises Rs 690 crore from Daiwa Securities, existing investors

Non-bank lender Ambit Finvest on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 690 crore from a Japanese securities group and other existing investors.

Japan-based Daiwa Securities Group, which has been a partner for Ambit Group in other businesses, will get a minority stake for its Rs 415-crore investment, a statement said.

The remaining Rs 275 crore has been raised from existing shareholders, including the parent, the statement said.

The company is engaged in providing secured and unsecured business loans, as well as used vehicle loans, to micro small and medium-sized enterprises in India over the last two years, and has invested in branches and technology, the statement said.

Classified as a systemically important Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), it has helped over 68,000 MSME business owners by offering them business loans for various requirements.

It has disbursed over Rs 6,000 crore worth of loans since its inception in 2018 and currently has over Rs 3,800 crore in assets under management. It is present in 11 states through 165 branches and 2,000 employees.

Ambit's group chief executive officer Ashok Wadhwa said the NBFC is now "at the cusp of a breakout" in business trajectory and added that Daiwa is a long-term strategic investor.

"We see India as a strategically important country which is expected to experience high economic growth in the coming years," Seiji Nakata, president and chief executive officer of Daiwa Securities Group, said.

Referring to the existing relationship with Ambit, which includes collaboration on institutional equities, equity capital markets (IPO), public fund-raising and related businesses leveraging the Indo-Japan corridor, Nakata said with the investment in Ambit Finvest, there is a potential for an expansion of its business operations in India.