INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
India is a major part of Google global focus
The companylaunched a new product in India last week as its program to bring free WiFi to the public registered its 400th railway station
tech giant is continuing to deepen its focus after CapitalG — itsventure arm formerly known as Google Capital — made its first
investment in India by backing micro-loan startup Aye Finance.
CapitalG led the $21.5 million Series C round which also included
participation from existing investors SAIF Partners and LGT, who were part of a $10.5 million investment in 2016
Since that round, Aye Finance has raised over $30 million via a series of debt investment-baseddeals, according to data from Crunchbase.
Aye
Finance offers micro-loans to small businesses in India that are not on the radar of banks and traditional financing companies, and also
don&t qualify for programs run by the likes of Flipkart and Amazon
The firm aims to digitize the market of informal money lending and loan sharking
Its disbursements are typically used as working capital for SMEs.
Over its four years of operations, the startup claims it has paid out more
Today, it claims to cover 10 states in India through a network of 72 branches
The firm touts its use of technology, and in particular data, which helps keep operating costs low and efficiency high.
In particular, it
targets industry ‘clusters& — aka industry verticals — which allows it not only to develop more accurate metrics for analyzing the
potential of a business than the general criteria that traditional financiers follow, but it also helps generate new leads through word of
mouth.
Aye Finance raises $10.3M to supply micro-loans to small companies in India
&We have used insightful data models and technology to
provide affordable business loans to the financially excluded micro enterprises across India [and] CapitalG access to Google expertise in
scaling businesses using analytics and technology will strongly supplement our approach
We are at an exciting juncture, where the business model has been proven and is also scaling well,&Sanjay Sharma, Aye Finance founder and
managing director, said in a statement.
Google previously made its first direct investment in an Indian startup when it backed Dunzo, a
startup that operates a concierge app, in December 2017
NowCapitalG is catching up with its first deal on Indian soil.
