CredAvenue joins unicorn club with series B funding of $137 Mn

By Salman SH

The Series B funding round was led by Insight Partners; funding values the company at $1.3 billion

-CredAvenue claims to have assisted more than 2300 corporates in raising debt money from more than 750 Lenders.

-The Indian start-up ecosystem has minted around 11 unicorns this year alone, with a total of 92 recorded unicorns to date.

CredAvenue, a digital platform that connects enterprises with lenders and investors has secured fresh funding worth $137 million in its Series B round, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The round was led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners, B Capital Group, and Dragoneer, with participation from existing investors.

The fintech start-up is now valued at $1.3 billion in its Series B round, making it one of the newly minted unicorns this year. The Indian start-up ecosystem has minted around 11 unicorns this year alone, with a total of 92 recorded unicorns to date, according private deals tracker Venture Intelligence.

Founded in 2017 by Gaurav Kumar and Vineet Sukumar, the company was originally set up as a subsidiary of Vivriti Capital Private Limited (VCPL). CredAvenue claims to have assisted more than 2,300 corporates in raising debt money from more than 750 Lenders. To date, it has facilitated debt volumes of over Rs 90,000 Crores.

Currently, the start-up offers five different platforms catering to both borrowers and investors including services like term loans, co-lending, trade financing, and portfolio buyouts. In addition, the company also offers portfolio management and monitoring services as a SaaS offering to its borrowers and lenders.

CredAvenue intends to use the funds to expand the business in India along with key global markets, organically and inorganically, by acquiring diverse companies for the forward and backward services and products integration. The start-up will also use the funds to enhance its technological capabilities by investing in deep technology innovations, AI, ML, and data analytics.

“CredAvenue, which has a solution for every stage of the debt product life cycle, expect to catapult on a hyper-growth trajectory over the next few years to make a difference for all Indian debt market participants and bring unprecedented transformation, akin to the equity markets of the 1990s, to the way a typical debt lifecycle is handled in India. We are paving the way for India’s debt market to realise its full potential, and we plan to soon being a leading player in the global debt markets with our unique and diversified product suites,” Gaurav Kumar, Founder & CEO, CredAvenue, said in a statement.

“We are excited about CredAvenue’s value proposition of bringing investors and borrowers on a single-window ecosystem to discover, facilitate and track debt products. I have had the privilege of knowing Gaurav for several years, and it’s exciting to back the strong team that is digitising Indian debt markets. Debt in India is still under-penetrated as a % of GDP at ~60%. This creates a massive opportunity for a leading player like CredAvenue,” added Kabir Narang, Founding General Partner at B Capital Group