Ummeed In News
This is Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd.’s Media Centre, here you can have a glimpse of our corporate and brand announcements. You can also access our press releases, media reports, interviews and articles across print, online and electronic channels.
Ummeed Housing Finance lands Rs 164 crore
The affordable housing finance company, which was founded in 2016 by former Citi executive Ashutosh Sharma, has now raised close to Rs 300 crore across multiple rounds of equity financing.
NEW DELHI: Ummeed Housing Finance has raised Rs 164 crore from a fund managed by Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia and existing investor LGT Lightstone Aspada.
The four-year-old, Gurugram headquartered company will use the proceeds from the Series-D round to expand into newer geographies, as well as further build its technology platform, with a focus on creating state-of-theart underwriting practices.
The affordable housing finance company, which was founded in 2016 by former Citi executive Ashutosh Sharma, has now raised close to Rs 300 crore across multiple rounds of equity financing.
The latest round also comes a little less than 18 months after it had raised Rs 72 crore from LGT Lightstone Aspada and Lok Capital.
“Given the participation from larger growth equity investors, the company will look to aggressively double asset under management to Rs 1,000 crore over the next 12-18 months,” Sharma, managing director of Ummeed Housing Finance, said. Avendus Capital acted as the financial advisor to the transaction.
Ummeed Housing Finance caters to the informal and low-income segment, predominantly in tier-II and tier-III towns, and operates through 26 hubs in Rajasthan, Haryana, the National Capital Region and Uttar Pradesh. It also offers secured business loans to the MSME sector.
The company’s offering includes Rs 3 lakh to Rs 50 lakh ticket-size loans for home purchase, home construction, home renovation, loan against property and business loans.
"Affordable housing finance presents a large untapped opportunity, which Ummeed intends to address through its scalable operating model built with the right blend of technology, people and processes,” Nirav Mehta, managing director, Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, said.
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Ummeed In News
This is Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd.’s Media Centre, here you can have a glimpse of our corporate and brand announcements. You can also access our press releases, media reports, interviews and articles across print, online and electronic channels.
Ummeed Housing Finance lands Rs 164 Cr financing
The company plans to use the funds raised to expand into newer geographies, as well as further build its technology platform, with a focus on creating state-of-the-art underwriting practices.
Ummeed Housing Finance has raised Rs 164 crore from a fund managed by Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia and existing investor LGT Lightstone Aspada.
The four-year-old, Gurugram-headquartered company will use the proceeds from the Series-D round to expand into newer geographies, as well as further build its technology platform, with a focus on creating state-of-the-art underwriting practices.
The affordable housing finance company, which was founded in 2016 by former Citi executive Ashutosh Sharma, has now raised close to 300 crore across multiple rounds of equity financing.
The latest round also comes a little less than 18 months after it had raised 72 crore from LGT Lightstone Aspada and Lok Capital.
"Given the participation from larger growth equity investors, the company will look to aggressively double asset under management to 1,000 crore over the next 12-18 months," Sharma, managing director of Ummeed Housing Finance, said. Avendus Capital acted as the financial advisor to the transaction.
Ummeed Housing Finance caters to the informal and low-income segment, predominantly in tier-II and tier-III towns, and operates through 26 hubs in Rajasthan, Haryana, the National Capital Region and Uttar Pradesh. It also offers secured business loans to the MSME sector.
The company’s offering includes Rs 3 lakh to Rs 50 lakh ticket-size loans for home purchase, home construction, home renovation, loan against property and business loans.
“Affordable housing finance presents a large untapped opportunity, which Ummeed intends to address through its scalable operating model built with the right blend of technology, people and processes,” Nirav Mehta, managing director, Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, said.
Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia has invested across sectors in Asia’s third-largest economy, including consumer products, financial services and healthcare, among others. Earlier this month, it reportedly invested Rs 190 crore in Centrum Housing Finance
In October last year, ET reported that the investment firm, along with Brahmal Vasudevan’s Creador, had led a Rs 300 crore funding round in non-banking finance company Kogta Financial.
LGT Lightstone Aspada came into being in 2019 after Swiss investor LGT acquired Aspada, an India-focused impact investment fund, to expand its impact investing platform LGT Lightstone, from Soros Economic Development Fund.
“We believe that this investment is a strong testament to the company’s robust operating model and focus on asset quality and will help Ummeed scale as a distinctive player in the affordable housing finance space,” Kartik Srivatsa, managing partner at LGT Lightstone Aspada, said.
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Ummeed In News
This is Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd.’s Media Centre, here you can have a glimpse of our corporate and brand announcements. You can also access our press releases, media reports, interviews and articles across print, online and electronic channels.
Ummeed Housing Finance raises $5.6m led by Lok
Delhi-based affordable housing finance company, Ummeed Housing Finance today announced it has raised Series B funding of USD 5.6 million from existing investors Lok Capital Growth Fund (Loks third fund) and Duane Park.
The fun raising comes on the heels of the first institutional funding of USD 3.5 million raised from Lok and Duane Park in October, 2016, the company said in a statement.
The fresh round of investment will fuel the companys expansion plans to new locations in North and Central India, lead to investments in SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) technologies and grow assets under management by six times in the next year, it said.
Founded in January 2016 Ummeed now has three branches in Delhi, Chandigarh and Jaipur and has close to Rs 20 crores assets under management (AUM), it said.
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Ummeed In News
This is Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd.’s Media Centre, here you can have a glimpse of our corporate and brand announcements. You can also access our press releases, media reports, interviews and articles across print, online and electronic channels.
Ummeed Housing Finance Raises Series B Funding of $5.6M Led by Lok Capital
The fresh round of investment will fuel the company’s expansion plans to new locations in North and Central India, lead to investments in SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) technologies and grow assets under management by six times in the next year.
Delhi-based affordable housing finance company, Ummeed Housing Finance today announced that it has raised Series B funding of $5.6 million from existing investors Lok Capital Growth Fund (Lok’s third fund) and Duane Park.
This is close on the heels of the first institutional funding of $3.5 million raised from Lok and Duane Park in October, 2016. The fresh round of investment will fuel the company’s expansion plans to new locations in North and Central India, lead to investments in SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) technologies and grow assets under management by six times in the next year.
Founded in January 2016 by Ashutosh Sharma, who spent 25 years at Citi, HSBC and Bank of Montreal, Ummeed focuses on providing housing finance access to families with low and informal income. Over the last 8 months, Ummeed has grown exponentially with three branches in Delhi, Chandigarh and Jaipur and has close to Rs. 20 crores assets under management (AUM). The company has also fared above industry standards on critical parameters like credit quality, yields, branch and per employee productivity metrics. In the next one year, Ummeed aims to expand to six new locations across North and Central India, and build AUM of Rs. 120 crore by March 2018.
Ummeed has already invested in building a technology platform for loan origination and loan management. In the next phase of technology deployment, Ummeed aims to harness the power of SMAC - social media, mobility, analytics and cloud commuting. It targets to go paperless, deploying tablets in all of its branches that can study the customers, run algorithms for credit scoring and disburse loans at a faster pace.
Talking about the latest fund raise, Ashutosh Sharma, Founder, Ummeed says, “The fresh round of investment comes at a time when Ummeed is ready for scale. We will strengthen our Fintech and move towards becoming a mobile platform. We aim to build scoring modules that can improve operation efficiencies, reduce turnaround time & build robustness around the credit quality of the portfolio. We would like to thank Lok and Duane Park for their continued support as we gear up for our next stage of growth.”
According to a Monitor-Deloitte study commissioned by World Bank and the National Housing Bank, the potential of the Indian affordable housing finance segment is currently pegged at Rs 8.8 trillion (~$135 bn). Topped with this, the Govt of India’s policies like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, promoting affordable housing, is expected to provide further impetus to the segment. This conducive environment gives immense opportunity for a company like Ummeed to lend to the informal market and gain significant market share.
Affordable housing finance is a crucial component of the financial inclusion thesis at Lok as it creates a stable and long-lasting asset for a family, apart from significantly improving their standard of living. Since its inception in 2004, Lok has built an enviable track record of investments in diverse business models in financial inclusion. This includes small finance banks, affordable housing finance and MSME finance.
Announcing the follow-on investment, Vishal Mehta, Co-Founder, Lok Capital said, “Both the approach to building the business and the proof points on the ground have reinforced our faith in the Ummeed team. We believe Ummeed will become a significant player in the affordable housing space in a short span of time, given the large market size, the founding team’s focused approach, strong underwriting capabilities and the vision to leverage technology. We are excited about the growth prospects of the company and are happy to further our commitment in Ummeed.”
Ummeed is backed by a team of ex Citi Bank professionals, who have solid foothold in commercial banking, credit and mortgage. Sachin Grover, the Chief Operating Officer, has over 20 years of mortgage experience at Citi Financials, IIFL and Magma Housing.The operating team of Ummeed consists of professionals with extensive small-ticket mortgage experience at companies like AU Housing, Magma and Shubham. Mr. Bikash Mishra has come on board as Financial Controller with 9 years of experience in fund raising, financial modelling, Treasury and finance functions. He has previously worked in Manappuram Finance and Encore Capital Group.
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Ummeed In News
This is Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd.’s Media Centre, here you can have a glimpse of our corporate and brand announcements. You can also access our press releases, media reports, interviews and articles across print, online and electronic channels.
Ummeed Housing Finance secures $5.6M from Lok Capital & Duane Park
With a focus on northern and central India, Ummeed is looking to use the fresh capital to fuel its expansion plans to newer locations in the same belt
Delhi-based affordable housing finance company Ummeed Housing Finance has raised Rs 36 crore ($5.6 million) from existing investors Lok Capital and Duane Park.
The investment in the series-B round has been made from Lok Capital's third fund Lok Capital Growth Fund. With this, the total capital raised by the company touches Rs 69 crore.
With a focus on northern and central India, Ummeed is looking to use the fresh capital to fuel its expansion plans to newer locations in the same belt. Ummeed will look at making investments in social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies in the near future.
“Our current hubs are in Delhi, Chandigarh and Jaipur with six new centres coming up in FY18. We are targeting tier-II cities with a population of over 10 lakh,“ said founder Ashutosh Sharma.
“We aim to build scoring modules that can improve operational efficiencies, reduce turnaround time and build robustness around the credit quality of the portfolio.“
Ummeed offers home loans, loans against property as well as insurance advisory services to customers with informal income, semi urban and rural borrowers who are not adequately banked. It provides loans ranging from Rs 3-25 lakh for a tenure of 2-20 years. The maximum loan-to-value ratio is 70-75%.
“Given that formal lenders are increasingly focusing on large ticket-size loans catering mainly to the mid-high income segments, there is an acute shortage for housing finance for lower income levels. Given the large market size, Ummeed's focused approach, strong underwriting capabilities and vision to leverage technology will help the company become a significant player in the space,“ said Vishal Mehta, cofounder, Lok Capital.
Lok Capital is scouting for investments in the areas of SME finance, affordable housing finance and digital or tech-enabled financing within financial inclusion.
The fund is also looking to close 2-3 investments by 2017-end in the areas of agriculture and health care. Nine-month-old Ummeed has set itself an ambitious growth target for assets under management that currently total Rs 15 crore.
“We are looking to ramp up our current asset base to Rs 125 crore by the end of FY18. We expect a positive bottom line in the full year of operation,“ Sharma told ET.
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Ummeed In News
This is Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd.’s Media Centre, here you can have a glimpse of our corporate and brand announcements. You can also access our press releases, media reports, interviews and articles across print, online and electronic channels.
Ummeed Housing raises $5.6 million
Affordable housing finance company Ummeed Housing will use the funds to expand to new locations in north and central India and for investments in technology
Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd has raised a series B round of funding of $5.6 million from impact investor Lok Capital and Duane Park, a top company executive said.
The Delhi-based affordable housing finance company had raised $3.5 million from the same investors in October.
Ummeed will use the funds to expand to new locations in north and central India and for investments in technology.
“This year is going to be about ramp-up in volumes and hubs and moving to the second phase two of our technology implementation. Phase one was about cloud-based systems. This year, we will introduce mobility in the front end and we will start working on credit scoring models," founder and managing director Ashutosh Sharma said.
The company focuses on affordable housing finance loans in the range of Rs3-25 lakh, said Sharma, who has spent 25 years working for Citibank, HSBC and Bank of Montreal, before founding Ummeed in January last year.
Since starting operations in September, the company has managed to achieve assets under management (AUM) of close to Rs20 crore through its three hubs in Delhi, Chandigarh and Jaipur. A hub serves a radius of 30-50km and Ummeed aims to generate an AUM of Rs25-30 crore from each hub annually.
The company is targeting AUM of Rs120 crore by the end of the current financial year, said Sharma.
According to Sharma, mobility and building a tailor made credit scoring model for affordable housing finance will be two big drivers for the business.
“Mobility helps improve your turnaround time dramatically. Traditional credit scores are not specifically made for affordable housing finance. The market is so large that if you want to achieve scale, you have to use technology from a process and underwriting perspective," said Sharma.
Ummeed will also use the funds to add new hubs as it looks to enter new markets. The company plans to add six more hubs this fiscal.
“Our focus is on the states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Western Uttar Pradesh. We are looking at cities such as Agra and Gwalior and other tier II cities in these four states," said Sharma.
Ummeed was impact investor Lok Capital’s maiden investment from its third fund, for which the investor is looking to raise a total of $100 million.
“Housing finance is one of the core areas of focus in the latest fund. We’ve had the conviction in the sector for long and we felt that multiple pieces required for the sector’s growth are falling in place. Refinance for housing finance companies is more readily available today, and the housing stock in this category is also on the rise," said Vishal Mehta, co-founder, Lok Capital.
According to a November report by ratings company Icra Ltd, the affordable housing segment has grown at a faster pace than the overall industry growth for housing finance companies.
“As per Icra’s estimates, the total loan book of all the players in the affordable housing segment stood at Rs96,000 crore as on 31 March 2016, indicating a growth of 28% during FY2016. Opportunities for growth are high for the segment given the current low penetration levels as well as the government thrust on the affordable housing segment," the report said.
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