With $25 mn in Series B, Progcap aims to solve last mile retailer financing woes

Desiderata Impact Ventures operated Progcap is enroute to building a full stack digital platform for last mile retailers even as businesses, both big and small, rethink their future in a post pandemic world.

On Monday, the company, which focusses on retailer financing in India’s micro and small businesses, announced that it has raised $25 million ($185 crore) in a Series B funding round led by global alternative investments firm Tiger Global Management and returning investor Sequoia Capital India. 

The fresh capital will go into enhancing its services and expanding presence across existing geographies. The firm will also use the capital to scale up the team, strengthen technology and diversify into new product offerings, according to a statement. 

New Delhi based Progcap was set up in 2017 by Pallavi Shrivastava and Himanshu Chandra. It aims to be a full stack retailer focused digital bank which enables capital flow across the supply chain to underserved retailers. 
 
The company says it provides clients with easily accessible and flexible collateral-free working capital loans through its Last Mile Retailer Finance (LMRF) solution. The financing is provided to retailers in Tier-II, Tier-III and Tier-IV locations. 

The fintech startup claims it has scaled to three lakh retailers across 50 corporates and disbursed over Rs 1500 crore of loans on its platform. 

The New Delhi based startup collected Rs 10 crore (about $1.37 million) in a debt funding round led by Stride Ventures in February.  

Sequoia led a $5 million (about Rs 36.4 crore at the time) Series A round of funding into Progcap in July 2019. Others who participated in that exercise included CIBIL chairman M.V. Nair, Freecharge co-founder Sandeep Tandon and GrowX Ventures Fund. In April 2019, it raised $1 million (about Rs 7.2 crore at the time) in a round led by GrowX Ventures. 

Tiger Global has increased its India bets and has led or participated in deals worth $2.77 billion since January, $1.23 billion of which has led to the creation of unicorns. So far, the investor has made 20 bets this year in India which is equivalent to what it did in 2020.