Edgro, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Propelld, secured finance from nine lenders, including Credit Saison India, AU Small Finance Bank, InCred Financial Services, and Northern Arc Capital. Edgro will use the new money to provide education loans, according to Nikunj Agarwal, head of debt and lending alliances at Propelld. Bibhu Prasad Das, Victor Senapaty, and Brijesh Samantaray founded Propelld in 2019 to provide education loans to borrowers through internet channels.
Propelld, an education-focused fintech business, has raised $25 million (approximately INR 208 crore) in debt funding for its non-banking financial corporation (NBFC), Edgro Finance.
According to Inc42, Nikunj Agarwal, head of debt and lending alliances at Propelld, said this was the NBFC’s first funding round. Nine lenders participated in the round, including Credit Saison India, AU Small Finance Bank, InCred Financial Services, and Northern Arc Capital.
According to Agarwal, Propelld intends to rapidly expand its NBFC business, while Edgro plans to use the new money to provide education loans. “We will leverage these funds to ensure that more and more students can access flexible loan options,” he stated.
Propelld, founded in 2019 by Bibhu Prasad Das, Victor Senapaty, and Brijesh Samantaray, provides education loans to borrowers through an internet channel. The business says that it goes beyond typical credit parameters to measure students’ learning abilities and employment possibilities when determining their loan eligibility.
Edgro is a completely owned subsidiary of Propelld that began operations in October of last year.
Agarwal discussed Propelld’s future goals, stating, “On the supply side, we will ensure that we have a diverse group of lenders. We would wish to expand existing categories, such as skill enhancement courses. Second, we are optimistic about higher education courses, and we are also piloting a few distant learning courses.”
It is important to understand that Propelld has several lending partnerships. In addition to Edgro, its digital lending partners include Avanse Financial Services, Aditya Birla Capital, and JM Financial.
The fundraising comes more than two years after Propelld raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by WestBridge Capital. Earlier in 2019, the finance business received $2 million from Stellaris Venture Partners and India Quotient.
Propelld claims to have partnerships with over 3,000 educational institutions and has disbursed over 2.5 lakh education loans to date. The firm competes with Skill-Lync, Eduvanz, and GyanDhan in the rapidly expanding yet underserved education funding market.
