Artfine’s NBFC Factoring arm, Arth Padarth Factors & Finance Private Limited (AP Factors), has raised an undisclosed amount from investors in its pre-seed funding round. The round witnessed participation from industry stalwarts including the Family office of Manish Choksi and Jaspal Bindra (Chairman, Centrum Group), Ketan Gaikwad (MD & CEO, RXIL), Nitin Gupta (Founder, Unicards), Vivek Vishwas Patel (Co-Founder, Go Payments), amongst others.
Helmed by ex-bankers Arvind Rangarajan TCA, Saini Rajgopal, and Shantanu Bairagi, the new age fintech positions supply chain financing as an asset class for Capital Markets alongside CV pools and Microfinance. AP Factors is the 7th Factoring NBFC in India which seeks to address the large SME / MSME segment through factoring of high-quality corporate receivables. The funding will be leveraged to beef up the technology stack, expand the team count, and operations across the country.
As per the World Supply Chain Finance Report, supply chain volumes have scaled significantly and crossed a milestone of total value of $1.31 trillion in recent years. The market has the potential to grow at a CAGR of 17.1 per cent by 2024 with the increased digital-led solutions among MSMEs and Corporates.
“India TReDS platforms have seen leap frogging factoring volumes in the last fiscal. AP Factors is well positioned as a Factoring NBFC to ride this wave with its innovative solutions for SMEs and MSMEs,” says investor Ketan Gaikwad (MD & CEO, RXIL).
Saini Rajgopal, Co-founder of Artfine Advisory says, “Access to timely capital is critical for India’s manufacturing and service sector for growth. Several MSMEs supply regularly to well rated corporate clients but their growth is thwarted due to lack of working capital. We bridge the gap by factoring their receivables and releasing collateral free working capital. Further this portfolio of good quality receivables is offered as investment options in the form of Pass Through Certificates (PTCs)”.
Since it got its factoring license in October 2021, AP Factors has already a healthy pipeline of high-quality corporate receivables from its customer base validating its journey of credit inclusion for MSME and SMEs and is well-poised to achieve an AUM in excess of INR 100 crs during the next year.
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Artfine had earlier advised India’s first dealer finance securitization and India’s first supply chain covered commercial paper. The fintech startup has collaborated with top banks and NBFCs as the lenders for MSMEs.
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