IFC backed Global SME Forum awards U GRO Capital 'Financier of the Year for Asia (Silver)' in Cambodia

MUMBAI, India, Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- U GRO Capital was conferred with the silver award in the category of the 'SME Financier of the Year – Asia entry' at the coveted Global SME Finance Awards, 2022. The award ceremony was held as a part of the Global SME Finance Forum, organised between 19-21^st September in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Organized by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and the SME Finance Forum, the Global SME Finance Awards, 2022, recognises financial institutions and fintech companies for their outstanding achievements in delivering exceptional products and services to their SME clients. Endorsed by the G20's Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), the Global SME Finance Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of financial institutions and fintech companies in delivering exceptional products and services to their SME clients.

Expressing happiness at the recognition, Mr Shachindra Nath, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, U GRO Capital Ltd., remarked, "We appreciate the recognition of our efforts in working towards our mission of 'serving the underserved' SME businesses. The digital depth of our foundation, our data-tech prowess combined with our sector specific strategy has helped us focus on growth drivers for our partners and support them. We have a massive task ahead of us and we are confident of leading the transformation we have set out to accomplish of serving the potential of the SME industry. We thank the jury for the encouragement."

The jury at the awards were impressed with U GRO's business model - in particular, the targeting of specific, SME-heavy sectors, rather than simply trying to engage with SMEs in general. U GRO has leveraged the model to achieve profitability and growth while keeping risk at a manageable level. The jury felt that U GRO could be a significant new player in the SME lending space. The jury also took into account U GRO's digitalisation journey and efficiency levels. 

U GRO's submission, which received significant praise from the jury was another factor in the application's strength. The jury felt that the submission was detailed, thoughtful, and provided a wealth of supporting data. The jury was particularly impressed with the way operating data was presented in the submission. The award testifies to U GRO's success, which is a result of robust planning and targeted marketing to eight specific sectors and micro enterprises.

About U GRO Capital Limited

U GRO Capital Limited is a Data Tech Lending platform, listed on NSE and BSE. Pursuing its mission of 'Solving the Unsolved' for small business credit gap in India, on the back of its formidable distribution reach and its Data-tech approach. (NSE: UGROCAP) (BSE: 511742).

The company's prowess of Data Analytics and strong Technology architecture allows for customized sourcing platforms for each sourcing channel. GRO Plus module has uberized intermediated sourcing, GRO Chain is a supply chain financing platform with automated end-to-end approval and flow of invoices, GRO Xstream is platform for co-lending, an upstream and downstream integration with fintechs and liability providers and GRO X is an application to deliver embedded financing option to MSMEs.

The credit scoring model, GRO Score (2.0), a statistical framework using AI / ML driven statistical model to risk rank customers is revolutionizing the MSME credit by providing on-tap financing like consumer financing in India

U GRO has pioneered the 'Lending-as-a-Service' (LaaS) model in India and has effectively operationalized Co-lending relationship with 10+ Large Public Sector Banks and large NBFCs and built a sizeable LaaS book of more than 20% of its AUM through the GRO Xstream platform.

The company is backed by marquee Private Equity funds and family offices (raised INR 900+ Cr of equity capital in 2018) and aims to capture 1% market share and cross INR 20,000 Cr of AUM by FY25.