Sindhuja raises $8.7m from Nordic fund, Carpediem Capital

Sindhuja Microcredit, which provides credit to rural women entrepreneurs, has raised USD 8.7 million series B funding from the Norway-based Nordic Microfinance Initiative and Carpediem Capital. The Noida-based microlender had raided USD 4 million from Carpediem Capital in March 2019 in the series A round, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The two-year-old Sindhuja has provided loans to over 84,000 self-employed rural women across five northern states. It has a loan-book of over Rs 170 crore as of March.   "This funding will be used to scale up operations and provide the much-needed credit to our customers, who are rural women entrepreneurs, whose lives have been badly hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic," the company said. Launched 11 years ago, the NMI is a reputed international impact investor investing in across African and Asian MFIs. It's a public-private partnership owned by the Norwegian and Danish governmental funds targeted at developing countries and large private institutions. Arthur Sletteberg, the managing director of NMI, said, Sindhuja can go a long way in supporting the rural women who are hit by global pandemic.

While Vidura Capital acted as the financial advisor for the transaction, Vertices Partners was the legal counsel for Sindhuja and Antares Legal was for the investors..

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