Mumbai-based Avanse Financial Services, a non-banking financial company(NBFC), has attracted investment worth $2.3 million in equity funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank.
Avanse is an associate company of Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) which provides housing finance. DHFL had raised a loan of around $12.5 million from IFC in 2003.
Avanse provides 100 per cent
education finance to Indians for higher education, both within the country and overseas. It needed the investment due to lack of alternative channels of education finance and the growing demand for education loans. There is great scope for growth as India is one of the largest education markets in the world with over 150 million people in the 18 to 23 age group.
IFC has been expressing interest in early stage start-ups. Education is an important part of IFC's development portfolio. At present, its education portfolio stands at over $660 million across 42 projects in 24 countries, for a total value of about $1.8 billion. In an earlier interview with Business Today, Pravan Malhotra, Senior Investment Officer at IFC, had said that until 2009 the organisation focused only on well established companies but is now eyeing start-ups and signing small cheques. It is identifying well established business models in the social sphere, particularly in areas such as clean technology and agriculture technology.
Looking at a horizon of six to seven years, IFC invests out of its balance sheets. It invested $1.6 million in Ahmedabad-based energy management startup Ecolibrium in May. It also committed to invest in Renewgen ventures- a waste-to-energy start-up.
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