Vayana, a trade credit infrastructure platform, has raised $20.5 million in its ongoing series D funding round.
Led by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation’s (SMBC) Asia Rising Fund, the funding round also saw participation from existing investors such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Chiratae Ventures, and Jungle Ventures.
Family offices like Quantum State Investment Fund and Emerald Company Pvt. Ltd have also participated in this latest ongoing Series D round.
Vayana provides a full stack of trade credit assessment, monitoring, and trade document processing. It facilitates over $1 billion of financing every month by banks and NBFCs to over 3,000 supply chains and their constituents distributed across the country.
Keiji Matsunaga, General Manager, Digital Strategy Department, SMBC, said, “We are excited to support innovation in finance to create social value via our collaboration with Vayana, which seeks to enable SMEs through opportunities to be part of supply chains.
We look forward to combining the expertise of SMBC Group with Vayana’s technologies to contribute towards the further growth of India.”.
Ram Iyer, Founder and CEO of Vayana, said, “MSMEs in India contribute 30 percent to GDP and 62 percent towards employment. Their continued success will leverage India’s population demographics and equitable growth across the country. Access to affordable and embedded trade credit represents the best catalyst to aid their success. We also believe that this goal requires the support of highly experienced financial services investors and we are glad to have the backing of SMBC Asia Rising Fund as well as our current investors in this round”.
Manpreet Ratia, Partner, Jungle Ventures, said, “Vayanahas transformed trade finance by simplifying and democratizing it for businesses of all sizes. We are excited to continue supporting Vayana in building India’s largest and most affordable Trade Financing Institution and providing solutions across every layer of the supply chain.”
The 65 million strong MSME sector in India faces a significant credit gap. The total addressable demand is about $120 billion per month, with banks and financial institutions currently covering only 45 percent of it, according to Vayana.