Debt Financing NBFC BlackSoil Raises $17 Mn In Series C Round

Mumbai-based specialised debt financing Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) BlackSoil Capital has raised $17 Mn from its existing sponsors in a Series C round.

Till date, the company has raised an equity funding of $25 Mn from marquee family offices of Allcargo Logistics, Navneet Education, and Mahavir Agency.

It has also raised additional an external debt of $27 Mn from banks and HNIs till date.

BlackSoil Capital focuses on providing customised innovative debt solutions to diverse segments such as real estate, promoters of unlisted growth companies, as well as to establish institutional investors-backed new economy companies and their ecosystems.

In many cases, BlackSoil is the first-time lender; its usual ticket size is from INR 5 Lakh to INR 25 Cr per deal.

In less than two years of its operations, the company claims to have deployed over INR 700 Cr across 80 transactions.

The company claimed that for Q1 FY19, its loan book is INR 400 Cr, a 233% increase compared to INR 120 Cr in FY17. It also claimed to have seen 17 complete exits.

In Q1 FY19, the company claims to have deployed more than INR 160 Cr across 19 deals.

Shashi Kiran Shetty, CMD of Allcargo Logistics and one of the key sponsors of the NBFC, said, “In an environment where banks are averse to (providing) direct funding for real estate and new economy companies, NBFCs like us have a good opportunity to support such companies, as long as they meet our conservative underwriting parameters, security, and cash flows requirements. We now have a decent asset base and believe this equity round has come at a good time to scale up assets under management (AUM) in the segments we operate in.”

Recently, the company raised an INR 300 Cr Walton Street BlackSoil real estate debt fund to invest in markets such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. The AIF has already invested 30% of the fund across three deals in past six months.

BlackSoil recently invested in its portfolio online lending marketplace Rubique and, before that, in B2B procurement startup and one-stop platform for business, industrial, and office goods, IndustryBuying.

It has previously funded logistics startup GoBolt, marketing automation startup WebEngage, weight management services firm Truweight, retail analytics provider IntelligenceNode Consulting Pvt Ltd, and consumer product company Chumbak Design, among others.

NBFCs: Making Space In Fintech

Since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granted NBFC status to P2P lending companies in India, the fintech space has been booming with several players diving in to expand their portfolio of services and to offer lending through traditional and transitional online methods.

Indian ecommerce company Flipkart is venturing into the fintech market — it has applyied for an NBFC licence to focus on consumer lending. The fintech sector it said to be worth $2.4 Bn by 2020.

Also, reports surfaced that digital payments giant Paytm is in the process of seeking a licence from the RBI to operate a P2P lending platform. Paytm is aiming to leverage its base of 7 Mn offline merchants to gain a stronghold in the country’s P2P lending landscape.

With the Indian fintech market continuing to attract huge investments, according to Inc42 Indian Tech Startup Funding report H1 2018, BlackSoil Capital has a huge market to capitalise on.