Agri-focussed lender Jai Kisan signs MoU with Karnataka Vikas Grameen Bank

Greenizon Agritech Consultancy, which operates agri-focussed lending platform Jai Kisan, on Wednesday said it has partnered with Karnataka Vikas Grameen Bank to provide customers in rural India further access to low-priced credit and other financial services.

Founded in 2005, Karnataka Vikas Grameen Bank operates in about one-third of the state’s geographical area, with 629 branches in 2,033 villages and over 79 lakh customers, as per its website.

Through the partnership, Jai Kisan said it will be one of the first few fintech platforms to fully integrate with the bank to empower a rural economy that comprises farmers and farmer groups, women self help groups, and rural MSMEs with low-cost financial services.

During the lockdown months of April and May in 2020, Jai Kisan said it worked closely with existing partner Omniactive Health Technologies to provide pre-harvest credit to its farmer network. The move, it said, impacted over 9,000 small and marginal farmers in Karnataka.

“Karnataka has been one of our most progressive states with a thriving agritech ecosystem and this partnership will help us significantly increase our reach and impact by catering the unserved in the deepest pockets of the state,” Arjun Ahluwalia, founder and CEO of Jai Kisan, said.

Texas A&M University graduates Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego quit their corporate jobs to set up the Mumbai-based startup in 2017.

In the past six months, the startup claims to have disbursed over $6.6 million in loans to over 5,500 borrowers from various income groups across 10 states.

The B2B2C platform partners with banks, NBFCs and digital lenders, as well as businesses that sell or procure farm equipment. The company claims to provide financing options for equipment, input and invoice financing for rural borrowers.

It had once also partnered with Avanti Finance to launch a formal small-holder farmer financing Platform along with a global development financial institution. Jai Kisan works with over 550 large corporates, agritech startups, rural SMEs, and farmer cooperatives and societies.

It claims to run on an annualized loan disbursal run rate of over Rs 280 crore, as of December 2020, within 12 months of facilitating the first loan through its platform. 

In April 2020, Jai Kisan launched Bharat Khata, a digital ledger and smart business assistant solution for rural businesses to smartly manage their businesses anytime and anywhere. 

The startup last raised capital in June 2020, when early stage venture capital firm Arkam Ventures led a $3.9 million funding round in the company.