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Fixed income platform Jiraaf, owned by AI Growth Pvt Ltd, has raised $8.7 million in equity as part of a Series B funding round. The round was co-led by Accel, an existing backer, and US-based fund Harmony Partnerswhile Capital A and other angel investors also participated. 

The new funds will be deployed for team expansion across tech, investment and customer care, said a statement by the company. 

Jiraaf raised a Series A round of $7.5 million led by Accel in April last year, with participation from the Mankekar Family Office, Capital A, Siddharth Shah (co-founder Pharmeasy) and Ramakant Sharma (co-founder Livspace), Anuj Jhaveri (director at Barclays, Hong Kong); and Shantanu Garg (managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group).

Founded in 2021 by Saurav Ghosh and Vineet Agrawal, Jiraaf is an investment platform that offers alternative fixed-income opportunities to customers. These include options like unlisted corporate debt, invoice discounting, real-estate linked debt, asset-backed leasing, and venture debt/revenue-based financing. 

These instruments, as per the company, typically have annualised IRR between 8-20% with tenors ranging from 30 days to 3 years. The minimum ticket size is Rs 1 lakh.

The platform, which has partnered with over 50 borrowers including the likes of Caratlane, Homecredit, Edelweiss, Zuari International, Vivriti Capital, Prabhudas Liladhar and Everest Fleet, says it has over 1.25 lakh registered users, and originated over Rs 2,300 crores worth of investments to date, repaying Rs 1,500 crores of capital back to customers with zero defaults, it said. 

“In the next 24 months, our aim is to reach more than 300,000 users, enable Rs 10,000 crore of investment. We aim to widen our offerings enabling better diversification and choices for our customers. A key for growing our business is to not just curate high quality investment opportunities but also provide more insightful information to our customers about different ways of creating generational wealth,” said co-founder Agrawal. 

The company competes with the likes of GoldenPi, Altitude, Per Annum and Dezerv in India. 

“Cumulative household savings in India are at Rs 13.75 lakh crore with immense potential for allocation to credible fixed income products. Mutual funds and robust equity markets have given Indian savers a good foundation for financial products. High quality fixed income products would fulfil an important gap in an investor’s portfolio,” Barath Shankar Subramanian, Partner at Accel, said.

”Private credit is witnessing growth across the world and India has significant potential given the size of the mid-market economy. Jiraaf as a platform can provide two-way benefits of supporting growing companies through credit and ensuring investors are able to participate to make their portfolio more robust,” Mark Lotke, Founder and Managing Partner at Harmony Partners, added.