Rural-based fintech startup Navadhan has raised ₹111 crore in its Series A round, more than its original target of ₹80 crore. It was led by NabVentures, the NABARD-borne venture capital firm, and co-led by Prime Venture Partners.
The over-subscribed funding will help to fuel business expansion and grow Navadhan’s proprietary AceN tech platform, which enables working capital financing for rural micro, small, and medium businesses (MSMEs).
AceN provides end-to-end services such as customer sourcing, digital onboarding, underwriting, payments, and collections. The company intends to scale its operations across India, broaden its loan products, and onboard more banks and NBFCs to its platform. Currently, AceN has over ₹700 crore in debt lines from over 25 financial institutions with API-based integrations that facilitate streamlined lending.
Established in 2019 by Nitin Agrawal, Amit Biswal, Vijay Haswani, and Anirudh Ramakuru, Navadhan seeks to fill the rural MSMEs’ funding gap using technology-driven solutions. Operating across more than 700 PIN codes in five states—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Odisha. Navadhan uses data science-driven underwriting models to evaluate borrowers’ digital trails and cash flow surrogates. This helps overcome issues in conventional rural lending owing to restricted banking history records and cash economies.
Nitin Agrawal was thrilled to collaborate with investors who believe in Navadhan’s vision of generating “new wealth” for rural entrepreneurs. Ashish Choudhary, NabVentures’ CIO, appreciated Navadhan’s three-year growth path. “Navadhan has shown a measured growth of 12x with good asset quality,” he added.
Navadhan’s funding arrives at a period when fintech is still an area of focus for Indian investors. Fintech startups have raised more than $2.5 billion across 162 deals in 2024 alone. This trend has carried over to 2025 with high-profile fundraises like InCred Finance’s ₹258 crore debt raise earlier this year.
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Navadhan’s ₹111 crore Series A round is a milestone in its vision to strengthen rural MSMEs with tech-enabled financial services. With a strong support system from NabVentures and Prime Venture Partners, the firm will further scale its operations while widening its reach to India’s underpenetrated areas. Utilizing cutting-edge technology and collaborative partnerships, Navadhan intends to transform rural lending and enable the financial inclusion of small businesses across the country.
