DMI Group Raises $123 Mn From NXC Corporation

Delhi-based financial services company DMI Group has raised $123 Mn in equity funding through its parent company DMI Limited. The investment in DMI Limited was led by NXC Corporation, which is a holding company of the game development and distribution company NEXON.

DMI Group plans to use this equity funding to accelerate balance sheet growth in the digital consumer and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) finance businesses. Meanwhile, NXC aims to boost financial inclusion in India, where a “large part of the population is locked out of the formal credit markets”.

DMI said that the last 18 months have been complex for financial services companies — from the liquidity crisis engendered by the IL&FS default to the economic implications of Covid-19.

The company said it has raised substantial capital in the past two years and has added $343 Mn of equity capital and $350 Mn of FPI-subscribed non-convertible debentures.

Prior to this, DMI Group had raised $200 Mn from an overseas investor by selling rupee-denominated non-convertible debentures (NCD’s) last month. “DMI continues to demonstrate its ability to raise global institutional capital even in turbulent times. This is a validation of the robustness of our business and our governance standards”, the company had said.

In January 2019, it had raised $230 Mn (INR 1,619.4 Cr) in a round led by asset management company New Investment Solutions, in January 2019. This was one of the top funding deals in the startup ecosystem last year. So far, DMI has raised over $800 Mn.

Founded in 2008 by Shivashish Chatterjee and Yuvraja C. Singh, DMI enables corporate lending, affordable housing finance, digital consumer and MSME finance, and asset management through its various verticals.

The group includes digital and consumer MSME finance businesses under DMI Finance, an NBFC, and a housing finance business under DMI Housing Finance. Previously, cofounder and joint MD Chatterjee, had highlighted that the company’s revenue is growing 30% month-on-month (MoM).

As per DataLabs by Inc42 report, Fintech Outlook 2019, fintech startups raised $2.6 Bn funding across 125 deals in 2019. The funding amount is 71% higher than that of 2018, meanwhile, the deal count had dropped by 9%. Delhi-NCR based fintech startups had taken a lead by cracking the most number of funding deals.

The report also highlights that there are over 2,707 fintech startups in India, and more than $5..29 Bn has been invested in the sector between 2014 and 2018. The sector was expected to be expanded to $31 Bn in 2020, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant had highlighted.