With a Monthly Disbursal of Rs 100 Cr, SME Lender OfBusiness Raises Rs 200 Cr in Series C Funding

Gurugram-based OfBusiness, a technology enabled SME financing platform, has raised Rs 200 crore in Series C financing led by Creation Investments and Falcon Edge with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India and Zodius Capital. With this new round of funding, the company has raised a total of Rs 500 crore of equity and debt funding till date. The company has also raised debt lines from Kotak, Tata Capital, RBL Bank and Northern Arc amongst other lending partners. Avendus Capital was the exclusive advisor to the current transaction.

“With financial services partners as Creation Investments and the right cost of capital through our debt lines, we will continue to bundle innovative lending and procurement solutions to address the growing needs of SMEs in India,” said Asish Mohapatra, co-founder and CEO, OfBusiness.

The company had first raised Rs 32 crore in January 2016 led by Matrix, and then Rs 71 crore in 2017 in a series B funding round led by Zodius.

Founded in 2015 by Asish Mohapatra, former VC at Matrix Partners; Bhuvan Gupta, ex-vice president of engineering at Snapdeal; and Ruchi Kalr, former McKinsey partner, OfBusiness has created a new category of purchase finance for SMEs with a variety of short-term and long-term financial products, enabling access to institutional credit. OfBusiness also differentiates itself by adding value to an SME’s business beyond financing, through its raw material fulfilment and new opportunities platform (Bidassist). This integrated offering enables higher business yield, repetitive loan transactions and better asset quality.

OfBusiness combines financing and a raw materials platform, seamlessly through technology. Underwriting of loans is done by not only evaluating financial data of the SME, but also proprietary data on anchor customers contributed by the SME community of buyers and sellers. Amongst its other service offerings, OfBusiness has also developed a proprietary platform, Bidassist, to help SMEs discover new growth opportunities across public and private tenders.

OfBusiness is growing at 10-15% every year and has been profitable since December last year. The latest infusion of growth capital will be used by OfBusiness for continued rapid growth, greater financial leverage and scaling a robust profitable model.

The company has extended loans to about 2,500 small enterprises working in the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. The total loanbook for OfBusiness stands at Rs 250 crore with a monthly disbursal of Rs 100cr.

Tyler Day, Director at Creation Investments, said, “We are thrilled to partner with the OfBusiness team for the Company’s next stage of growth. OfBusiness has built an impressive suite of financing solutions tailor made for the needs of SMEs in the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors, segments largely underserved by banks and traditional NBFCs. The scale and profitability that OfBusiness has achieved in such a short time is both a testament to the Company’s innovative products and the untapped potential of the SME sector in India. We are excited about the Company’s future and the opportunity ahead”.

Other significant players operating in the Indian SME lending space are LendingKart, Capital float, SMEcorner, Quikrupee, Innoviti, and Biz2credit among others.