Beams Fintech Fund, India’s first Growth Stage Fintech Fund, has invested in the Series C round of Progcap, India’s leading supply chain finance company. Beams has invested alongside Google, Creations, Tiger, and Sequoia in this round. Other investors in this company include GrowX, CIBIL chairman MV Nair, and Freecharge co-founder Sandeep Tandon. 9Unicorns & ZNL Growth Fund also participated in the round along with Beams.
Founded in 2017 by Pallavi Shrivastava and Himanshu Chandra, both richly experienced finance professionals with deep knowledge of supply chain and microfinance. Progcap is revolutionizing the way financial credit is delivered to small and medium retailers of the Indian retail economy.
Having worked at Global organizations such as the World Bank and IFC, Pallavi has a nuanced understanding of how innovative financing structures can be used to propel the growth of underserved businesses and how this can be applied in the Indian context. On the other hand, Himanshu comes with deep experience in supply chain finance, having built the supply chain finance portfolio at Standard Chartered Bank.
Supply chain finance is the need of the hour with many companies facing cash flow crunches and unorganized collections processes, Progcap is bridging the gap between distributors and retailers through specialized finance, payments and technology.
Till date, Progcap has disbursed more than $1 billion in loans, grown 4X annually. It has worked with over 700,000 SMBs.
Beams Fintech Fund’s ecosystem and network of LPs, which includes leading Banks and NBFC’s, will look to cross-pollinate with Progcap. Beam’s value add strategy is to cross-pollinate between its LP’s and portfolio companies. Beams will facilitate access to its banking network and open doors to its group’s portfolio of 250+ startups for partnerships, collaboration, and potential acquisition opportunities for Progcap.
Sagar Agarvwal, Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Beams, said, “We are pleased to have backed Pallavi & Himanshu, building one of the fastest growing and disruptive supply chain finance platforms in the country. Supply chain is a deep problem in India with a credit gap of more than $300 Billion and SME/MSMEs require access to capital through innovative financing solutions. We are excited to work with Pallavi and Himanshu on building the future of supply chain finance and payments in India”.
“We are excited to join hands with Beams team to solve challenges faced by MSMEs/SMEs in their financing requirements. Beams has built an interesting value add strategy towards companies & we are looking forward to working together with them on problems being solved by Progcap,” said Pallavi Shrivastava, Co-founder, Progcap.
