Matrix-backed OfBusiness raises INR 250 crores in Series D Funding

New Delhi, 25th September 2019: OfBusiness, a technology enabled SME financing platform, has raised INR 250 crore in Series D financing led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India and Falcon Edge. With this new round of funding, the company has raised a total of INR 1,500 crores of equity and debt funding till date. While most of the sector struggles with raising capital, the company has also raised debt from several marquee lenders across banks (Kotak, HDFC, ICICI, Axis, RBL, IDFC First, AU and Utkarsh among others) and other financial institutions (HLF, Unifi, MAS, Vivriti and Northern Arc Investments among others). The company already counts Matrix Partners India, Zodius Technologies, Falcon Edge, Creation Investments and several leading angels as its investors.

OfBusiness has pioneered a new category of purchase finance, aligned to the cash flow cycles for core sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and infrastructure, enabling access to institutional credit as an alternative to high cost distributor financing. OfBusiness also differentiates itself by adding value to an SME's business beyond financing, through its raw material fulfilment and new opportunities platform (Bidassist). The fulfilment platform provides cost-effective procurement of raw material to SMEs and ensures guaranteed end use of funds for OfBusiness. This integrated offering enables higher business yield, repeat transactions and better asset quality.

Since its incorporation in 2015, OfBusiness, in the last 3 years has grown steadily (4x each year), profitably (best in class RoA in its peer set) while maintaining a high-class asset quality (consistently <1% NPA) and highly engaged customer base. OfBusiness' suite of Lending ++ (Lending coupled with procurement and marketing) are offered to (under) banked, profitable, high vintage and sizable SMEs engaged in delivering products and services for large anchor customers in core sectors of the economy.

Asish Mohapatra, co-founder and CEO, OfBusiness said, "We strongly believe that lending is a commodity or will get commoditized in the future. The only way to monetize, engage and create network effects in lending is by adding services that are inherently valuable to the customer while being profitable on a stand-alone basis for the financier. Thus, we coined the model Lender ++. We believe that in serving SMEs, we have a huge scale and need awaiting us.

The infusion is coming at a time when the financial services sector is on a liquidity squeeze and will help OfBusiness maintain its profitable, risk focused growth path. In addition, NVP brings in a lot of local understanding of the financial services space in India and hence would be priceless thought partners.'

Niren Shah, Managing Director and Head of India at Norwest said, "We are delighted to partner with the OfBusiness team which we believe has built an exceptional track record in tech-based SME lending to the manufacturing and core sector. We are always looking to make investments in robust and differentiated businesses and OfBusiness has been a pioneer in the lending space which uses its B2B fulfillment platform to extend purchase financing to SMEs.

We believe that Ofbusiness is a unique company that combines the growth, technology and scalability of the best fintech companies with the high profitability and superior asset quality of top financial services companies in India.'

Commenting on the fundraise, Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix Partners India said, "We're privileged to be early partners with Asish and the OfBusiness team. They've succeeded in creating a unique model combining conservative underwriting and collections practices with the rapid scalability of its technology platform. OfBusiness is poised to build a SME fintech institution on a foundation of profitable growth and we look forward to the journey ahead.'

About OfBusiness:
OfBusiness is the brand name for Oxyzo Financial Services, a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) registered with the Reserve Bank of India and its parent OFB Tech Private Limited that provides various B2B services to SMEs. As a technology driven SME financing platform, OfBusiness adds value to SME's business beyond financing through its raw material fulfillment engine and new opportunities platform (Bidassist). OfBusiness currently has operations across 14 regions and is headquartered in Gurgaon. For more information, please visit www.ofbusiness.com

About Norwest Venture Partners India:
NVP is a leading venture capital and growth equity investment firm managing more than $7.5 billion in capital. Norwest has invested in more than 600 companies and currently partners with over 140 active companies across its venture and growth equity portfolio. The firm invests in early to late stage companies across a wide range of sectors with a focus on financials. consumer, enterprise, and healthcare. Norwest has offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco, and subsidiaries in India and Israel. For more information, visit www.nvp.com and follow Norwest on Twitter @NorwestVP.

About Matrix Partners India:
Matrix Partners India is an investment firm with approximately $1 billion under management. Founded in 2006, the firm invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer and enterprise market at the seed, early and early growth stages. Matrix India has invested in several market leading companies such as Ola (local transportation), Quikr (online classifieds), Practo (digital health platform), Dailyhunt (mobile local language platform), Stanza Living (student housing), Mswipe (mobile POS), Five Star Business Finance (SME lending), OfBusiness (credit led B2B marketplace), Avail Finance (online lending platform),Ola Electric Mobility (multimodal electric vehicle platform), Vogo (scooter sharing), Razorpay (payments), Yelo (Neo bank), FPL Technologies (credit and payments platform) and ZipLoan (small business lending) among others. Matrix India has advisory offices in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Matrix Partners has a global network of funds investing in the US, China and India, with approximately $5 billion under management. Further information is available at www.matrixpartners.in