Jai Kisan raises $50mn in Series B round; claims to fuel rural growth

Rural Fintech startup Jai Kisan has raised $50million (Rs 390 Crore) in a combination of equity and debt in the first close of its ongoing Series B round. 

New investors GMO Venture Partners, Yara Growth Ventures and DG Daiwa Ventures, existing investors Blume, Arkam Ventures, Mirae Asset, Snow Leopard Ventures, and others, invested in the funding. Northern Arc, Alteria and MAS Financial contributed to the debt raise.

"Jai Kisan aims to use the proceeds of the fundraise to expand product suite and enhance customer journey. The funding will also help accelerate the phenomenal growth of existing products, strengthen talent, and boost data science and engineering capabilities," the startup said.

"Jai Kisan's app, Bharat Khata, helps rural value chains digitize transactions, capturing never-before seen insight into financial services’ needs, customer behaviour and transaction footprint of rural businesses and individuals. Extended across the Bharat Khata network of retail storefronts, Jai Kisan’s POS Financing Solution (BNPL) has seen immense traction, gaining 400% growth in customers in 3 months," the firm added.

Erkki Aaltonen, Managing Director of Yara Growth Ventures said, "We were immediately struck by the opportunity that Jai Kisan has to help enable better financing to rural Indians” said George Roche of Yara Growth Ventures. "Better credit access can help micro, small, and medium enterprises grow their businesses while helping growers afford products to improve their yield and quality."

Arjun Ahluwalia, Co-founder and CEO, Jai Kisan said, "We are proud to have come thus far in this journey of revolutionising financial services for rural India. It is due to the strong support of our network of customers and partners, and our extremely resilient team that we have been able to launch and scale such ground-breaking solutions. We will continue to build on the back of this support and create impact in this underserved space, leveraging creative new age solutions and keeping customer experience at the core of our beliefs."