Navadhan bags $1.5m seed funding for expansion of rural fintech platform

Navadhan, an Indian fintech startup focused on rural areas, has announced raising $1.5 million in a seed funding round led by Varanium NexGen, a fintech-focused fund, and co-led by existing investor Anicut Capital.

Gemba Capital also participated in the round.

Previously, the rural financial services provider attracted pre-seed funding from Anicut, BOPA, Flowstate, and other angel investors, including Prasanna Rao from Arya.ag and Sarah Djari from Impact Fintech PE. This new funding raises Navadhan’s total capital to $16 million in equity and debt lines with NBFC partners.

Aparajit Bhandarkar of Varanium NexGen said: “India is growing and Rural markets are not far behind. While most of the fintech space is focussed at Tier-1,2,3, we saw Navadhan’s focus on the informal market as a potential high-growth area. Navadhan’s founders are seasoned professionals with credible experience in financial services.

“With the right TAM, Team, Tech, and Traction, they are building an early mover’s advantage in rural-markets. Tech-led approach gives non-linear scalability to their model. We see Navadhan as a potential market leader in making.”

Navadhan plans to channel the funds towards the development of its AceN Tech platform, a unique solution connecting rural micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) with non-banking financial companies and banks. Thus far, the platform has enlisted over 200,000 customers and disbursed more than INR 100 crore in association with 15 lenders, including Ugro, Vivriti, Northern Arc, Caspian, Unitus, and TruCap.

The AceN Tech platform transforms the customer experience with seamless digital onboarding and reduced paperwork. Navadhan’s proprietary alternative-underwriting model leverages data science to assess the digital footprint and cashflow surrogates of customers. This method effectively addresses the issues of lack of income proofs and documentation that have traditionally deterred banks from operating in these markets.

Navadhan, co-founded by Nitin Agrawal alongside Vijay Haswani, Anirudh Ramakuru, and Amit Biswal, taps into the increasing digitisation of financial services. Drawing on Nitin Agrawal’s extensive experience in micro-banking and rural finance, Navadhan is prepared to benefit from the predicted 44% increase in smartphone and internet penetration by 2030, much of which is anticipated in rural areas.

Founding team of Navadhan : Right to Left – Vijay Haswani, Nitin Agrawal, Anirudh Ramakuru, Amit Biswal. Photo courtesy of Business Wire India.

Looking ahead, Navadhan aims to launch new solutions and offerings, including credit limits for small businesses and tech tools to digitize unorganized value chains. The firm also plans to promote Climate Smart Agri practices among its rural customer base to create a significant social impact.

Nitin Agrawal — Navadhan CEO said: “We are a tech-led and revenue-first fintech. Our mission is to help create new-wealth for the rural small-entrepreneurs by solving for their challenges. We are leveraging Tech using alternative-credit, predictive analytics backed by data sciences. With both Tech and People on-ground, we are making it work for the NBFCs and Banks to generate priority sector assets.

“The new fund raise will add tailwinds to our growth plans. As the Smart-phone and UPI penetration improves, we have an early mover advantage in the rural markets.”