Yara Growth Ventures invests in one of India’s leading agriculture fintechs – Jai Kisan – as part of a USD 50 million fundraising
Jai Kisan is a leading provider of financial services to rural Indian farmers and traders. The company focuses on enabling more transparent and attractive financing along the agricultural value chain with its buy now, pay later and supply chain financing.
Founded by Arjun Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego in 2017, Jai Kisan has grown into a critical part of India’s agricultural ecosystem by providing financing to both agricultural retailers and farmers. Since its inception, Jai Kisan has expanded its services to include supply chain financing and buy-now-pay-later offerings.
“We were immediately struck by the opportunity Jai Kisan has to contribute to better financing for rural Indians,” says George Roche of the Yara Growth Ventures team. “Better access to credit can help micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) grow their businesses, while helping producers afford products that will improve their yields and quality.”
The Yara Growth Ventures team has been impressed by the professionalism and passion of the Jai Kisan team. They have a clear action plan on how to deliver value to their customers by creating a strong flywheel – starting with a free software tool for MSMEs to better run their businesses, all the way to financing for the MSMEs and their customers direct.
“We are proud to have come this far in this journey of revolutionizing financial services for rural India,” said Arjun Ahluwalia, Co-Founder and CEO of Jai Kisan. “It is because of the strong support of our network of customers and partners, and our extremely resilient team that we have been able to launch and scale such ground-breaking solutions. We are grateful for the faith that our investors, lenders and others stakeholders have shown, and continue to show in our vision. We will continue to build on the back of this support and create impact in this underserved area, leveraging creative new age solutions and keeping the customer experience at the core of our beliefs.”
New investors include Yara Growth Ventures, GMO Venture Partners and DG Daiwa Ventures joining existing investors such as Blume, Arkam Ventures, Mirae Asset, Snow Leopard Ventures and others. Northern Arc, Alteria and MAS Financial contributed to the debt increase.
About Jai Kisan
Developer of a fintech platform designed to reduce risk in the flow of capital to rural emerging markets. The company’s platform facilitates low-cost loans with minimal paperwork for the borrower through its physical access points and generates a risk-adjusted rate of return for the lender, enabling customers to access the company’s widespread distribution network to take out low-cost loans. https://www.jai-kisan.com/
About Yara Growth Ventures
Yara Growth Ventures is the venture investment team of Yara International ASA that invests in disruptive startups in the agricultural industry globally to advance the mission of responsibly feeding the world and protecting the planet. Learn more at www.yaragrowthventures.com
