Veritas Finance Pvt Ltd, a non-banking finance company that lends to small businesses, has raised ₹200 crore in a Series D round from Norwest Venture Partners X, Mauritius. Existing investors, including CDC Group plc, UK’s development finance institution, and P Surendra Pai, former Executive Chairman of Murugappa group and an anchor investor in the company, participated in this funding round.

According to D Arulmany, Managing Director and CEO, Veritas, the company will use the funds to penetrate into existing markets to help micro, small and medium enterprises for business expansion, working capital needs and for asset creation.

Founded in 2015, the Chennai-based Veritas has a loan book of ₹530 crore. It has more than 21,000 customers in seven States. The company has over 130 branches.

Veritas had raised ₹30 crore in a Series A round in March 2016 from Lok Capital-advised Sarva Capital and Caspian Impact Investment Advisors; ₹120 crore in a Series B round in December 2017 from CDC Capital, plc, of the UK, and existing investors Lok Capital and Pai; and, ₹60 crore in a Series C round from CDC, Lok and Pai in April. Veritas' networth is ₹430 crore.

According to Arulmany, Veritas disburses ₹40-45 crore a month and there continues to be good demand for credit in the segment it lends to. The company has a debt line of ₹300 crore from 23 lenders and Veritas, according to Arulmany, is well-placed to meet the growing credit needs of its customers. Veritas operates in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and recently entered Madhya Pradesh.

He said the company was closely monitoring the liquidity crisis affecting the NBFC industry, but expected the situation to ease in the next 4-5 months.

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