Basic Home Loan: BASIC Home Loan Raises $3.5M in Series A Funding

NEW DELHI: BASIC Home Loan, a Gurugram-based startup developing a home loan automation platform for middle- and low-income households in India, has raised $3.5 million in funding from series A led by Venture Catalysts (VCats) and Gruhas Proptech with other venture capital funds including Earlsfield Capital and Good Capital. BASIC’s existing investor, Picus Capital, also reinvested in this round.

“We are working to make home loans simpler, more transparent and BASIC for low-income households. We are off to a great start on our journey, building a strong distribution network in affordable housing hotspots in 15 cities in the first 12 months,” said Atul Monga, co-founder and CEO of BASIC Home Loan.

The funding was followed by a $500,000 seed round from Picus Capital, a Germany-based start-up technology investment firm in October 2020.

“We have been overwhelmed by the interest that ecosystem players, such as property developers and housing finance companies, have shown in partnering and investing with us to achieve the goal of ‘housing for all “. We would further strengthen our distribution in more than 40 cities as well as the digitization of credit processes in the next phase,” added Monga.

The cycle also saw the participation of super angels and family offices including Haldiram’s, LetsVenture Syndicate led by Anupam Mittal, Promoters of Sapient Wealth, Amit Nanavati, Dhruv Dhanraj Bahl (COO, BharatPe via Bharat Founders Fund), Parag Shah ( Managing Partner, Mahindra Partners), Alex Babu (Founder of Hedge Finance) and Alex Lin (CEO, Outlier) among others.

“This is one of the largest transactions on our platform. In a country where affordable, quality housing is still a distant dream for many as they have to go through various pain points just to get a loan, BASIC solves a major problem by automating home loans through a phygital approach,” said Apoorva Ranjan Sharma. , Co-founder of startup investor VCats Group.

Some real estate community leaders such as Jatin and Mohit Goel (Omaxe Ltd), Binitha Dalal (Rustomjee Group) and Karishma Thakker (Thakker Developers), have also invested in BASIC, to take advantage of the unique automation game it builds for corporate real estate.

“We were impressed with how BASIC Home Loan used the Phygital approach to keep the cost variable to achieve positive unit economics, that too for small affordable home loans, which even the largest of financial institutions have trouble,” said Abhijeet Pai of Gruhas Proptech.

Founded during the first wave of the pandemic last year, BASIC’s vision is to digitize the home loan process and increase the penetration of affordable loans for middle and low income households in India through a “phygital” approach. “. In its first 12 months, BASIC disbursed Rs 400 cr in loans in over 15 cities. The company plans to achieve a monthly loan repayment rate of Rs 200 cr and hire over 300 people into the workforce by March 2022.

“We are very impressed with how quickly the BASIC team has entered the market and made a significant contribution to the affordable housing sector,” said Oliver Heinrich, Partner at Picus Capital.

The company currently has more than 25 banking partners. Nearly 25% of loans disbursed through BASIC are with Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojna applications and 30% for construction of new housing units.