VCCircle

Indian microfinance fund Lok Capital has received funding of $2.5 million from Boston based Accion International, a leading global microfinance institution. The investment has been done by Accion's Gateway Microfinance Investment Vehicles Fund (GMIV). This will take the Mauritius registered Lok Capital's fund size to $14.5 million from the exiting $12 million. This is the Delhi-based firm's first fund.
Lok Capital is targeting to close the fund at $20 million by January 2008, Vishal Mehta, General Manager, Lok Capital, told VC Circle. That will be the final close of the first fund, which has an investment period of four years (another three years to go since it was launched last year). The investors in the expansion round will include the existing investors and two or three new investors. It had earlier raised monies from institutional investors such as CDC, FMO, KfW, and IFC. Mehta said Lok Capital has already invested a total of $3 million in two MFIs - Janalakshmi in Bangalore and Spandana (alongwith JM Financial) in Hyderabad.

More deals
Indian microfinance space has been witnessing a spate of deals lately. Recently, Intellecap, an advisory and investment banking firm focused on the MFI and social engineering space, raised $8.4 million from Legatum. Aavishkaar India Microventure Capital Fund, a VC fund that invests in micro enterprises, recently raised $4.8 million to take its first fund size to $6.1 million. Aavishkaar is targeting to close this fund at $15 million by December 2007. Aavishkar Goodwell, a a microfinance fund like Lok Capital which invests in MFIs, had raised capital from IFC, the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), and Deutsche Bank.
Hyderabad based Share Microfin, an MFI, had raised $27 million from Legatum Capital and Aavishkaar Goodwell. Sequoia Capital India had also invested $11.5 million in another Hyderabad based MFI SKS Microfinance.
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