Boutique investment company Mayfair 101 has made a second investment in PayMate, India's leading B2B payments company, to help fuel its planned expansion into credit for small businesses.
Mayfair 101 has now invested USD2.5 million into the fast growing B2B payments company that provides payments automation services to businesses and is looking to play a greater role in both facilitating and providing credit to SMEs. PayMate is planning a USD25 million fund raise to execute on this.
PayMate currently facilitates over USD200 million of credit per month to thousands of small businesses in India. The demand for credit by SMEs in the Indian economy is in excess of USD500 billion with only USD170 billion of this being currently serviced. This leaves a gap in excess of USD300 billion worth of credit being needed to fuel small business growth.
PayMate Founder and CEO, Mr Ajay Adiseshann, stated "PayMate has historically been lending through our existing banking relationships however we consider it important that PayMate itself expands its lending offering by sourcing capital to supplement bank lending to help close the credit gap."
In late 2017, PayMate entered into a partnership with Visa for B2B payments in India and South Asia, a relationship which has already started adding value to PayMate in terms of new accounts.
Mayfair 101 Managing Director, James Mawhinney, stated “The global demand for credit is substantial, and PayMate is well positioned to address this demand with the low risk provision of credit associated with lending via closed supply chain ecosystems.”
In recognition of the high global demand for credit, Mayfair 101 is also currently developing a blockchain-based credit provision platform that it plans to launch in the second half of 2018 to cater to the USD1b+ demand its existing portfolio companies have in the credit sector.