Debt financing NBFC BlackSoil has invested more than $4.5 Mn in three startups – Blu-Smart Mobility, BigHaat, and LoanTap.
In August last year, BlackSoil had invested INR 20 Cr cumulatively in Loanzen Finance, SV CreditLine (SVCL), and CMS IT Services.
BlackSoil has a credit platform that features an NBFC and 4 AIFs. The company has, so far, invested more than $250 Mn across 120 deals, and has an AUM of more than $80 Mn.
BlackSoil is a backer in 5 unicorns: Udaan, OYO, Zetwerk, Spinny, and the beleaguered Infra.Market, among other startups at multiple stages in their growth. In 2021, BlackSoil had participated in 28 deals.
Ankur Bansal, cofounder and director of BlackSoil said, “We are excited to take exposures in these high growth sectors via these investments, with Blu-Smart and BigHaat being BlackSoil’s foremost bet in the sustainability-focused segments namely e-mobility and agri-tech.”
Blu-Smart Mobility is a ride-sharing platform, with a catch – the company only has electric cars in its fleet. Founded by Anmol Jaggi and Punit Goyal in 2019, Blu-Smart Mobility has the complete stack of e-mobility; smart mobility, smart charging, and smart parking.
Headquartered in Delhi-NCR, the company has a fleet of more than 1,000 all-electric vehicles and also features 10 charging stations along with more than 250 charging points at those stations. Blu-Smart Mobility has also seen more than 1 Mn trips to date.
The startup has investors the likes of bp Ventures (the investment arm of British Petroleum), Mayfield Fund, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalyst and several HNIs, having raised $36 Mn so far.
The latest funding round took place in 2020 when Blu-Smart had raised $7 Mn in funding from multiple investors including Inflections Point Ventures, Venture Catalysts, Survam Partners, Mumbai Angels, Chhattisgarh Investments Ltd, Jain International Trade Organization (JITO) Angels, Lets Venture Fund and Kaplavriksh Fund.
BigHaat is a Bengaluru-based Agritech company that provides integrated agriculture supply chain solutions and gives farmers agri-inputs along with crop advisory services and provides output market linkage services to these farmers.
Founded in 2015 by Satish Nukala and Sachin Nandwana, the startup features more than 7,000 SKUs of agri-inputs, with a service region consisting of more than 13,000 pin codes.
The startup also uses its farmers’ network for its output market linkage business, where the startup focuses on high-value crops such as spices and select grains.
Recently, it had raised nearly $15 Mn from JM Financial and existing investors Beyond Next Ventures.
LoanTap is one of India’s fast-growing lending tech startups, that are looking at a $616 Bn market opportunity by 2022, per Inc42 analysis. LoanTap has its own NBFC, which helps the startup deliver credit products to its users.
Founded in 2016 by Vikas Kumar and Satyam Kumar, LoanTap is a Pune-based fintech NBFC. The startup offers a wide range of solutions, with ticket sizes ranging from $400 to $20,000 and tenures from 12 months to 60 months.
Right now, the startup is present in more than 20 cities in India and claims to have a loan approval TAT of fewer than 2 days, using its proprietary underwriting algorithms, called L-T Flow.
The startup counts Shunwei Capital, Avaana Captial, 3one4 Capital, India Quotient and Kae Capital as its major investors, and last raised funds in a funding round back in 2019 when it raised $8 Mn from 3one4 Capital, along with Shunwei Capital, Kae Capital, India Quotient, Tuscan Ventures and angel investor Ashish Goenka.
