Suryoday Microfinance gets Rs 45 million from Aavishkaar-Goodwell

MicrofinanceFocus, July 20, 2009: Aavishkaar Goodwell, a specialized equity fund dedicated to Indian MFIs, has recently made an equity investment commitment of Rs 45 million to Suryoday Micro Finance Pvt Ltd (SMF), the company said in a statement on Monday.
Suryoday, a Pune-based MFI which began its micro‐credit operations in May this year, was the first MFI in India to secure equity funding from an institutional investor prior to commencement of operations. The funding will be used towards early stage operational investments and capital adequacy requirements.
Vineet Rai, Managing Partner, Aavishkaar Goodwell, said: “We are excited about our partnership with Suryoday on account of its excellent management team with a strong social consciousness, focus towards under‐served areas and their association with Intellecash.”
Acknowledging the support from Aavishkaar Goodwell, Baskar Babu, CEO of Suryoday Microfinance, said it would enable the MFI to get started. “This partnership is helping us achieve our dream of creating a world class financial services company for the economically challenged women,” he said.
Suryoday, started by three ex-bankers — Baskar Babu, Ganesh Rao and V. L. Ramakrishnan — is engaged in providing loans to women in Maharashtra at present and wants to widen the operations to other states.
Aavishkaar-Goodwell is a joint initiative of Aavishkaar India, the world’s first for‐profit microventure capital fund and Goodwell, a Dutch microfinance investment company funded by social investors and pension funds.

Related Posts:

• Suryoday Microfinance raises $4.4 mn equity from Lok Capital & Aavishkaar
• Aavishkaar Goodwell invests in Shre Pathrakali (Utkarsh) microfinance
• MicroVentures India lends INR 35M to Suryoday Microfinance
• IFC, Aavishkaar Goodwell to invest $1.9 million in Pathrakali Finance
• SRIJAN 2009 to debate on microfinance challenges
• India Financial Inclusion Fund to invest in Sonata, Allahabad-based microfinance institution
• Aavishkaar picks up 21% stake in Pune-based Saraplast
• Grameen Koota NBFC-Microfinance receives over 27.5 crore equity funding

© 2009, Microfinance News. All rights reserved. 2008-09