Ummeed Housing Finance raises Rs 270 crore led by Norwest Venture Partners

Ummeed Housing Finance, an affordable housing finance company, has raised Rs 270 crore in a Series E funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners.

“This round of fundraising gives us clear visibility on the equity front as we are looking to expand our operations, strengthen our technology platform, and enter new geographies,” said Ashutosh Sharma, founder and managing director, Ummeed Housing Finance.

The company looks to double its assets under management or AUM to Rs 1,300 crore over the next 18 months. “Our current loan book size is Rs 650 crore and we are looking to grow at 40-50% per annum going forward,” he told ET.

Existing investor Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia participated in the latest round.

In February 2020, Ummeed had raised $20 million in equity from Morgan Stanley PE Asia. In December 2020, CX Partners had acquired a minority stake in the company by acquiring shares from early-stage investors Lok Capital and Duane Park.

Founded in 2016 by Sharma, a banking veteran, the company caters to the informal and the low-income households predominately in Tier II and Tier III towns through 42 hubs across Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi NCR and Uttarakhand. It has a digitised loan approval and disbursal process, which allows for a quick turnaround of customer requests.

“We believe the affordable housing finance market is huge and untapped,” Sharma said.

The affordable housing finance market is expected to grow to Rs 40 lakh crore by 2030 from Rs 13 lakh crore as on March 31, 2021.

“We will also target an addressable credit gap of Rs 37 lakh crore in the business loan segment,” Sharma said. Besides housing loan, Ummeed also offers secured business loans to the MSME sector.

The company has so far disbursed more than Rs 1,000 crore in loans to over 12,000 customers.

“The Ummeed team has been able to maintain robust credit despite difficult market conditions and have one of the finest track records of collections in the industry,” said Niren Shah, managing director of Norwest Venture Partners.

Nirav Mehta, managing director of Morgan Stanley PE Asia, said, “This capital raise is an affirmation of Ummeed’s robust operating model and will position it well to scale further into newer geographies.”