Kedaara invests in Warburg Pincus-controlled Avanse Financial
Indian private equity firm Kedaara Capital, which struck two new investment deals in the healthcare sector last year, has begun 2023 with a transaction in the financial services sector.
Avanse Financial Services Ltd., an education-focused non-banking financial company (NBFC), said Thursday that Kedaara Capital will infuse Rs 800 crore (just under $100 million) into the company.
Warburg Pincus continues to be the majority shareholder in Avanse, which also counts International Finance Corporation as a shareholder.
Avanse offers student loans, loans for professionals for skill enhancement and executive education, and loans for financing working and growth capital needs of educational institutes in India.
The company’s AUM stands at Rs 8,000 crore as of December 2022, reporting a 1.9x growth over the same period last fiscal year. During April-December 2022, Avanse recorded the highest-ever growth in its loan disbursement of around Rs 4,850 crore, delivering 2.5x growth over the same period last fiscal year, it said.
Avanse said its services has helped over 3 lakh academic aspirants across more than 3,000 institutes and 25,000 courses in over 50 countries. The company also provided growth and working capital to over 1,000 educational institutes catering to over 5-6 lakh students.
Amit Gainda, Managing Director and CEO at Avanse, said: “As the world recovered post the pandemic, we witnessed a significant resurgence of students seeking higher education at international locations. The growth capital will enable us to strengthen our brand proposition, integrate digital solutions and innovate to build more depth into our product range as we work towards delivering greater stakeholder value.”
Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor for the transaction. AZB & Partners represented the company and Warburg Pincus as legal counsel. Khaitan & Co. acted as legal counsel to Kedaara Capital.
This comes after two new deals by Kedaara last year, both in the healthcare space.
Kedaara has been on the road to raise its third fund that was aiming at as much as $1 billion in capital commitments. It had disclosed it had garnered over $260 million a year ago and is yet to make a formal final close.
Kedaara was founded by Manish Kejriwal, Sunish Sharma and Nishant Sharma. Kejriwal was previously the India head of Singapore state investment firm Temasek. Sunish was managing director and Nishant was principal at US-based PE firm General Atlantic in India before starting Kedaara.
The PE firm invested in about a dozen companies from the first two funds. These include eyewear retailer Lenskart, Vishal Mega Mart, Sunbeam Auto, Mahindra Logistics, AU Small Finance Bank, Spandana Sphoorty Financial Ltd and Vedant Fashions, which makes ethnic wear under the Manyavar brand.
