Funds for continuing expansion
Gojo & Company has raised US$22 million through series D for further growth of its existing group companies in India, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka apart from future expansion to new markets in Asia and Africa, encourages the formalization and growth of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.
It secured the capital by March 2020 and the final close is expected to be announced by July 2020.
To be able to raise significant capital in a complicated macro environment marred by COVID-19 is a testament of its unique business model and potential to scale rapidly, said Gojo in a release on 8 May 2020.
It has continued raising funds from the US$40 million Series C round announced in October 2019.
Seven Bank, Credit Saison, SBI Group and several individual investors including existing shareholders joined this financing round. Follow-on investment from the existing shareholders shows their confidence in Gojo’s market potential and its operational capabilities, even under the current market turmoil.
Gojo has been continuously injecting fresh equity into its partners. Additionally, Gojo also provides inter-company loans backed by Japanese lenders. In the last quarter, Gojo has invested over USD 15 million in its partners.
Satya MicroCapital: With imminent approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to shore up its ownership in Satya, Gojo has invested US$5 million with a commitment to invest an additional USD 10 million on the closure of all approval formalities.
Winner of the best MFI Award last year, Satya is one of the most promising microfinance institutions in India, delivering the fastest growth in terms of AUM and the number of borrowers in the industry history in India while maintaining robust credit quality. Since its inception in September 2016, Satya has disbursed microloans totaling over USD 250 million across 380,000 women borrowers as of February 2020.
Aviom India Housing Finance: Earlier in February 2020, Aviom received approval from RBI to allow Gojo to increase its ownership in the Company. As a result of this, Gojo invested an additional US$3.7 million in Aviom in March 2020. Aviom is an Affordable Housing Finance Company facilitating families in mostly semi-urban areas in realizing their dream of owning their first home. The funds will enable Aviom to create an impact at the grass-root level and generate multiple growth opportunities for everyone, especially with a strong focus on women, thereby promoting gender equality.
Maxima Microfinance: Gojo also strengthened its Cambodia operations through an inter-company loan of US$5 million to Maxima Microfinance. Maxima will use the funds for micro and individual loans mostly to women borrowers and also for the expansion of its small ticket digital loans through the agent banking model.
Ananya Finance for Inclusive Growth: To consolidate its ownership and support the Company’s ongoing expansion plans, Gojo further invested US$1.55 million in Ananya. Ananya is a wholesale lender to small and mid-sized microfinance institutions in India apart from lending to agri-companies and impact enterprises.
“Similar to the global situation, the spread of the new coronavirus is beginning to affect our businesses as well,” said Gojo.
Much of the businesses have seen a freeze in new disbursements and slowdown in collections. As a group, Gojo places the highest priority on the safety of clients and employees.
“Thus, we took immediate actions such as conducting remote-working style and extending some moratorium to our borrowers without additional interest payments and penalties.
“Apart from this, as described above, the capital infusion in our partner companies has given them enough liquidity to battle through this period of global crisis,” he said.
Gojo was founded to extend financial inclusion to everyone in the world beginning with the developing countries and encourages the formalization and growth of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.
Its long-term goal is to enable the provision of high-quality affordable financial services for 100+ million unserved and underserved people in 50+ countries by 2030.
“Five and half years since our establishment, we work in Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India with 3,400+ employees, serving more than 570,000 women who are also mothers,” said Gojo. fiinews.com
