Veritas Finance, a Chennai-based financial services firm that lends to micro and small enterprises, has reportedly raised a new round of debt financing.
The FinTech has raised Rs55 crore in debt financing from Incofin Investment Management and BlueOrchard according to Paper.VC. The financing comes just months after Vertias closed a Series B funding of Rs 120 crore from Lok Capital and CDC Group.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) registered Veritas Finance as a non-banking financial company (NBFC) in October 2015.
Its primary purpose is to meet the working capital and business credit requirements of the small businesses in the MSME sector, according to its website. It aims aims to make availing credit easy to this segment because it has ‘remained largely underserved despite several initiatives’.
With this goal in mind, Veritas provides long-term finance for business expansion as well as shorter-term loans for working capital needs.
The company has designed loan products to meet business expansion, working capital and purchase of stock/asset purposes. The loan amount would depend on the requirement of the enterprises, for a normal tenure of 5 years. Veritas Finance said it could consider extending higher loan amount and longer tenure for the customers after assessing the nature of the business and the requirement.
Boasting more than 14,000 customers , the startup has around 700 employees in 68 branches and 100 micro-centres in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karnataka, West Bengal and Odisha.
In order to ensure that the activities of Non Banking Finance Companies are not used intentionally or unintentionally by criminal elements for the purpose of money laundering activities, NBFCs need to exercise caution and put in place proper customer identification process and acceptance process in place while carrying out their business. Accordingly, in compliance with the guidelines issued by RBI from time to time, Veritas Finance has put in place the following KYC & AML policy approved by the Board of Directors of the Company.
Last month, Jaipur-based non-banking financial company Finova Capital raised $6m over two tranches from Sequoia India. The MSME (micro, small and medium enterprise) sector in India comprises more than 58 million enterprises, employs more than 111 million people and contributes 37% of the country’s GDP according to Finova. The idea of Finova originated from the belief that if supported well, then micro & small medium enterprises can play a pivotal role in growing Indian economy.
Earlier in the year, Indian online lending platform FinREQ reportedly closed an undisclosed funding round led by Bennett, Coleman & Co through its Brand Capital arm. While LenDen Club, a Mumbai-based peer-to-peer lending platform, landed a $500,000 equity investment from three investors.
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