Mumbai: Lending to women has helped private equity major Warburg Pincus-run education loans company Avanse Financial Services raise USD 15 million or Rs 110 crore in foreign debt. The external commercial borrowing (ECB) has been done from the US-based World Business Capital Inc and the money is backed by a guarantee from US International Development Finance Corporation, an official statement said.
“The organisation has received this long-tenure social impact funding under US DFC‘s women empowerment initiative – ‘2X Women’s Initiative’ as 30 per cent of the students funded by Avanse are women educational aspirants,” the statement said.
The initiative aims to catalyse investment in projects that are owned by, led by, or empower the world’s women and supports the administration of Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP), it said.
This borrowing will support the expansion of Avanse’s education financing activities, it said.
“We have been able to create a new category of long-tenure social impact funding.
The fund will be utilised to help more number of deserving Indian students to fulfil their academic aspirations,” the company’s chief executive Amit Gainda said in the statement.
Recently, Avanse secured Rs 250 crore under the government and regulatory initiatives including through the Targeted Long Term Repo Operation (TLTRO) window 2.0 by RBI and the Partial Credit Guarantee (PCG) Scheme of the government.
Avanse funds courses such as STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) programmes, MBA programmes and also, some of the non-conventional courses like photography, music, aviation, animation both in India and abroad.
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