Rural FinTech lender Jai Kisan raises $4 million from Arkam Ventures, NABARD

By Priyanka Pani

June 16, 2020

Jai Kisan, a Mumbai-based fintech platform for rural customers, has raised INR 30 crore ($4 million) in Pre-Series A round of funding led by Arkam Ventures (formerly known as Unitary Helion) with participation from NABVENTURES Fund I. Jai Kisan is also NABVENTURES’ first investment. The fresh round of fundraising saw participation from existing investors including Blume, Prophetic Ventures, and Better Capital.

The round also saw participation from prominent leaders in finance and agri-like an affiliate of The Chatterjee Group (TCG), Rajiv Sahney (New Vernon Capital), Sanjay Mariwala (Omniactive) and others.

Jai Kisan, founded by Arjun Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego, started off as an agri-fintech platform but currently is building the first rural fintech full-stack platform to cater to the financial needs of customers in rural emerging markets. It provides cheap financing options for equipment, input, and invoice financing for rural borrowers with the help of technology.

“Adriel and I started Jai Kisan to facilitate rightly priced credit (and other financial services) to rural borrowers. It didn’t make sense to us that a poor woman borrower in the middle of nowhere is expected to generate over 24% IRR on a small INR 50K type loan. While in our previous jobs (private equity) we were expected to generate a meager 12% IRR for our LPs armed with billions of dollars in capital. We set out on the mission to change the way financial services are delivered to rural customers. Over the past few months, we have built a diverse book while ensuring delivery of credit instantly and more importantly – cheaply, across 10 states including the most backward parts of the country.” said Ahluwalia, CEO of Jai Kisan.

Over the past 6 months, Jai Kisan has disbursed over $6 million in loans to a diverse set of over 5500 borrowers from various income groups across 10 states. The start-up’s financial products and technology platform can onboard a diverse set of borrowers varying from a lady farmer with minimal documentation in a tribal village with no electricity in the Nilgiris to a large grape producer and exporter in Nashik.

“Very few startups have the commanding view of a largely untapped space. Even fewer startups have the luxury of tailwinds in these challenging times. Jai Kisan is a rare combination of both of the above along with a unique business model that adds value to multiple participants of the Agri supply chain. We are very excited to lead this new round of financing in Jai Kisan”, said Rahul Chandra, Managing Director of Arkam Ventures.

Jai Kisan deploys a B2B2C approach driven by technology, partnering with businesses that sell (inputs, equipment, etc.) or procure (buyers, processors, dairies, poultries, etc.) across the Agri, dairy and poultry value chains. Driven by technology end-end and leveraging these deeply rooted networks, Jai Kisan is able to facilitate cheap financing to rural borrowers at unprecedently low-interest rates, with seamless process flow and quick turnaround.

Today, less than 50% of households dependent on agriculture have access to credit with even lesser having access to rightly priced credit. Rural borrowers often find it difficult to access financial services from banks and other traditional sources due to the lack of documentation, credit/transaction history, visibility of cash flow and operations. The company has partnered with three top banks and five NBFCs, including being a key FinTech partner for Avanti Finance India Pvt. Ltd, an NBFC promoted by Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani and Dr. Vijay Kelkar.

June 16, 2020