Saswat Finance, a fintech platform, has raised $2.6 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Ankur Capital. The round also saw participation from existing investor Incubate Fund Asia.
The funds raised will be used to expand its tech capabilities, add new financial products to its platform, and scale operations across Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. The infusion of capital will also be used to enhance the data and analytics infrastructure and to broaden their product portfolio.
Founded in 2022 by Arun Tiwari, Indrajyoti Bhattacharjee, and Ravi Ranjan Chaudhary, Saswat Financial Technologies is a Mumbai-based fintech platform delivering affordable, tech-enabled financial services to India’s smallholder farmers and nano/micro-enterprises.
The platform offers credit enablement, insurance, and advisory services through a proprietary, low-cost digital infrastructure that enables doorstep delivery and collection.
Saswat Finance leverages its proprietary platform to bring in superior capabilities on credit origination, managing insurance partnerships, and digital collections.
Saswat’s data-driven model is based on a unique blend of traditional and alternative data, including milk production, cash flow trends, weather patterns, geographic factors, and social indicators.
Saswat is currently operational in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka and claims to have onboarded over 6000 customers on their platform and enabled the disbursal of ₹55 crores+ in asset-backed loans.
Saswat has associated closely with the dairy cooperatives ecosystem (AMUL in Maharashtra, Britannia, Shahaj & Srijini, Nandini, Schreiber Dynamix, Lactalis, Hatsun), insurers (Iffco Tokio General Insurance, Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC), Credit Access Insurance), and lending institutions (RBL Bank, Shivalik Small Finance Bank, Ambit Finvest, Western Capital, etc.) to extend its distribution and product capabilities.
Arun Tiwari, CEO & Co-Founder of Saswat Finance, said, “In a country where over 65% of the population resides in rural areas, India’s rural economy holds immense potential, however systemic barriers like informal lending, inadequate documentation, and lack of efficient last-mile distribution have ensured that a large financial services opportunity is underserved. Saswat is uniquely positioned at the intersection of fintech, agritech, and insuretech to redefine access to financial services for underpenetrated segments. At Saswat, we’re blending tech and trust to deliver credit, risk protection, and productivity advisory services directly to customer’s doorstep. This new funding will empower us to advance our mission by investing in technology, deepening our reach, and aggressively scaling our operations.”
Krishnan Neelakantan, Partner at Ankur Capital said, “When we first met Saswat’s team, we were impressed by the thoroughness of their tech-first approach for enabling financial solutions to markets with large untapped potential, strategically starting with income-generating assets like cattle. With the ongoing digital transformation of the dairy sector and other large supply chains as a tailwind, Saswat is addressing a critical gap in the market by using their tech platform and leveraging alternative data for delivering substantial value at the last mile. We’re excited to back Saswat’s vision to transform financial services for this large economic market.”
Rajeev Ranka, Partner at Incubate Fund Asia said, “Saswat Finance is building a full-stack finance platform to unlock credit access to rural India with a very unique approach of blending the credit at the point of sale with a mix of strong alternative data. We are delighted to double down on our partnership with Saswat Finance, a team with a unique mix of strong financial services experience and execution capabilities.”
