SAIF Partners: Atop the Online Bandwagon
SAIF Partners: Atop the Online Bandwagon
SAIF Partners makes a $1 million or INR 60 million investment in Capital Float which is an online platform providing working capital finance to SMEs in India. The company is planning to expand its operations to cities such as Pune, Chennai and Ahmedabad for building technology and increasing the loan book to INR 200 million though it is currently at INR 70 million.
The venture is currently 1 years old and it was founded by Stanford alumni Gaurav Hinduja and Sashank Rishyasringa has gained seed funding from an earlier point in this year. A committment had also been secured of around $2 million which is INR 20 million from Aspada Investment Company which is the investment vehicle of Soros Economic Development Fund. This in itself is the big league for SAIF Partners as the social investment fund has been set up by billionaire investor George Soros.
Capital Float offers short-term loans to SMEs across a wide variety of sectors including services, manufacturing and e-commerce through technology-led origination of loan as well as credit underwriting platform. Loans are offered from INR 3 to 20 lakhs with terms of up to 12 months and an interest rate commencing at 16% per annum with a processing fee of 0.5% of the loan amount.
Website borrowers can make an online application to select desired repayment terms and receive funds. SAIF Partners commenced with investments in the year 2001 and has management of over $1 billion worth of investments in India . The firm has invested in companies such as Just Dial and Blue Star.
The company has made a seed investment of INR 40 million in TouchTalent and also infused around $2 million in an e-learning portal known as Toppr. SAIF has also invested in famous online travel portal MakeMytrip and travel search engine ixigo.com apart from investments of around INR 100 Million invested in TravelTriange which is a 4 year old start-up formed by IITians.
SAIF Partners also announced an investment of around US $1million in the digital SME Finance company Capital Float on account of just the right numbers of this group. SAIF Partners currently has a portfolio of around 30 companies including HomeShop18 and Mindtree.
Founded last year by Hinduja and Rishyaringa, Capital Float is known for its stellar work for kickstarting new businesses through welcome infusion of funds . Many success stories owe their victories to SAIF Partners . This company currently works with SMEs as well as e-commerce merchants and small manufacturers along with B2B service providers .
