Shivalik Small Finance Bank on Tuesday said it has secured Rs 100 crore in equity funding co-led by venture capital firm Lightspeed and Sanjay Nayar’s Sorin Investments. Its existing investors Accel and Quona also participated in the latest funding round.
The bank said it will deploy the new capital to improve its tech stack, strengthen its team and further improve its products, focusing on small businesses and the underserved segment.
“This investment will help us accelerate our growth as we look to leverage digital banking adoption by small business and retail customers…Shivalik aims to reach MSMEs and underserved retail customers of ‘Bharat’ through a wide range of partnerships.,” said Anshul Swami, Managing Director and CEO, Shivalik Small Finance Bank.
Founded back in 1998 by Yashvir Kumar Gupta, Shivalik Small Finance Bank said it was the first small finance bank in the country to transition from an urban cooperative bank. The bank said it has over 8 lakh unique customers and operates through 175 branches across UP, Uttarakhand, MP, NCR, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
“Shivalik has a key focus on secured lending to MSMEs or small businesses with a ‘brick and click’ strategy of physical branches coupled with a digital-first approach. We at Sorin see a big opportunity for financial services and financial inclusion in Bharat and are excited to partner with a strong management team at Shivalik who deeply understand raising retail deposits, managing risks and leveraging technology.” said Mandar Dandekar, Partner at Sorin Investments.
Sorin Investments backs tech and tech-enabled businesses across sectors at Series A/B stage. Some of its portfolio companies include Uniqus Consultech, Venwiz, Litestore and Freed.
Meanwhile, MSMEs secured Rs 24.6 lakh crore in gross bank credit from scheduled commercial banks under priority sector lending norms in April 2024, up by 18.1 per cent from Rs 20.84 lakh crore during April 2023, according to the latest data by the Reserve Bank of India on the monthly deployment of bank credit.
Priority credit to MSMEs in April was 14.9 per cent of Rs 164.76 lakh crore in India’s non-food credit during the month.
