U GRO Capital, a listed MSME lending fintech platform, today announced the appointment of Ms Smita Aggarwal as Additional Independent Director of the company.
Smita has three decades of experience in finance as a banker, lender, regulator and an investor. She is Global Investments Advisor for Flourish Ventures, a global fintech focussed fund, and leads investments in innovative fintech start-ups that help advance financial health and inclusion in Asia. Smita is on the Fintech Advisory Board of New York University and Global Fintech Fest. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of IIFL Asset Management Company and guest faculty for “Fintech in Emerging Markets” at the Stern School of Business, New York University.
Smita has held leadership positions with noteworthy names such as Omidyar Network, Fullerton India Credit, Reserve Bank of India and ICICI Bank with a successful track record of building businesses from scratch, introducing new products, and driving growth through innovation. She is a rank-holder chartered accountant and has attended executive programs at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. Listed in “Top 35 Global Women in Fintech Power list”, ‘Top Women in Finance’, “Top 30 Fintech Influencers” and “Women Who Venture” – brings together her high caliber experience and energy to U GRO Capital.
Speaking on the appointment, Mr. Shachindra Nath, Executive Chairman and Managing Director of U GRO Capital stated, “We are delighted to welcome Ms. Smita Aggarwal to U GRO Capital’s board as an independent director. U GRO have been focusing on Impact & ESG extensively, she has done extensive work around digital financial inclusion space and we are confident that her addition to the Board would sharpen U GRO’s focus in these areas”.
Smita Aggarwal
Said, “I am delighted to join U GRO Capital as an Independent Director and be a part of the company’s rapid growth journey. This is an exciting time for U GRO Capital, as it is rapidly approaching its Vision 2025 growth targets and surpassing significant milestones in doing so, which also becomes a source of excitement to me.”
As of 31 December 2021, U GRO Capital’s AUM had risen to Rs. 2,589 crore and its branch network stood at 82. Further it recorded the highest monthly disbursements at Rs. 414 crore in December 2021. Its customer base recently crossed the 16,500 mark. Continuing the momentum, the company has set a vision 2025 of acquiring 1 % market share of the outstanding MSME credit, achieving an AUM of Rs. 20,000 crore and serving 1 million MSME customers.
About U GRO Capital Ltd.:
U GRO Capital limited is a listed (NSE, BSE), MSME lending fintech platform. U GRO Capital’s mission is ‘Solve the Unsolved’ – Small Business Credit Need with its omnichannel distribution model combining physical and digital journey of the customer. The Company envisions to spearhead India’s transition of MSME lending market to the new age of on-tap financing. It uses the emerging Data Tripod of GST, Banking and Bureau coupled with its sectoral analysis to solve the problem of credit for small businesses.
U GRO aspires to serve one million small businesses with an asset book of 1% of outstanding MSME credit of India as its first milestone.
Technology underpins every aspect of U GRO’s lending process, from API integrations, sectoral and sub-sectoral statistical scorecards, state-of-the-art AI/ML credit underwriting engine combining bank, bureau and GST statement analyzers, automated policy approvals, and machine learning OCR technology. Company’s GRO Extreme platform empowers fintech and other institutional platforms to deepen their distribution reach through a plug and play API driven seamless integration with U GRO. The company has developed full tech stack to fully automate the complete life cycle of a loan right from origination to collection during the entire customer journey.
The Company has raised 2500 crore of equity & debt capital from marquee Private Equity Investors, Family Offices, Banks and other Financial Institution over last 3 years.