BlackSoil Capital raises Rs 70 Crore via secured NCDs issue

New-age, sector-agnostic, alternative credit platform, BlackSoil has raised Rs 70 Crore through an issue of non-convertible debentures (NCDs) for its non-banking finance company (NBFC).

These NCDs are longer tenure products raised from UHNIs, HNIs & Family Offices, of which 65 per cent were existing investors. This marks the final capital raise via NCDs in the calendar year 2021 for the NBFC, which has managed to secure Rs 100 Crore from 100+ UHNIs, HNIs & Family Offices, during this period.

The capital raised through the latest fundraise will be deployed predominantly for lending activities, across a variety of debt products, to fund mid and growth-stage enterprises in the startup ecosystem. The NBFC aims to fund around 25 start-ups from sectors such as Deep Tech, B2B Tech, Enterprise SaaS, FinTech, HealthTech, EdTech, Clean Energy, & D2C/B2C E-Commerce.

The pandemic has transformed the venture debt space in India, in terms of both the number of venture debt deals and the average deal value. H1-2021 saw nearly $170 million worth of venture debt deals compared to $55 million in H2-2020 and $64 million in H1-2020. Due to the venture capital boom that we are witnessing, more and more startups are raising venture debt on the back of large equity rounds, which is enabling them to secure sizeable cheques to meet their working capital requirements.

"At BlackSoil, we have closed 4x the number of deals in the first half of 2021, as compared to the same period last year. We are seeing exponential deal flow in H2-2021 as well. Our latest round of NCD fundraise shall further facilitate us in meeting the growth requirements that startups are facing and wish to combat that through means of venture debt, which in turn would augment our portfolio." said Ankur Bansal, Director and Co-founder of BlackSoil Capital.

The NBFC has established a network of more than 300 high net-worth families and corporates, who have shown support by subscribing to multiple NCD issuances by the company over the past few years. In numerical terms, the NBFC's unique NCD program has enabled it to raise Rs 360 Crore across multiple series, of which more than 30 per cent of the capital has been repaid over time. The company has managed to reduce its cost of capital by 200 basis points in the past 2 years supported by an improving credit profile, which has enabled them to quickly raise funds at competitive rates.

BlackSoil Capital is an RBI-registered, non-deposit taking NBFC that predominantly operates in the venture debt space. To date, it has deployed Rs 1,500+ crore across 100+ deals and 65 per cent of the capital has been returned which has further been redeployed. Some of BlackSoil's noteworthy investments include recently turned unicorns – Infra.Market, Zetwerk & Spinny, B2B unicorn – Udaan, IPO-bound unicorn – OYO Rooms, and online marketplace for cosmetics – Purplle amongst others.