Mars Growth Capital, a joint venture between Israel-based private credit firm Liquidity and Japan's MUFG Bank Ltd, has invested another $50 million (around Rs 428 crore) in building materials platform Infra.Market as the Mumbai-based unicorn prepares for a stock market listing this year.
Infra.Market said on Monday that Mars has also extended the terms of its existing financing of $100 million by another five years. The latest financing takes Mars' total investment in Infra.Market to $150 million, it said in a statement.
"We are seeing growth opportunities as we are rapidly expanding our market presence, and create a best in class construction materials company out of India,” said Souvik Sengupta, co-founder, Infra.Market.
Northcote Luxe FinBrokers acted as the sole advisor to Infra.Market for this transaction.
Rising debt load
The financing comes at a time when Infra.Market is looking to file for an initial public offering (IPO) this year of up to $1 billion, while aiming to control the debt load. High capital expenditure and deteriorating cash flows have pushed the construction materials marketplace's debt load higher, which in May prompted credit rating agency India Ratings and Research to downgrade the company's short-term and long-term debt, respectively, by a notch.
Earlier this year, Infra.Market secured about $125 million (around Rs 1,069 crore) in a Series D funding round from Tiger Global, Ashish Kacholia and Nikhil Kamath and others, which pushed the valuation to $2.8 billion (around Rs 23,946 crore). The company was set to secure a second tranche of funding this year from another investor, VCCircle reported in May.
Wide network
Founded by Souvik Sengupta and Aaditya Sharda in 2016, Infra.Market offers construction solutions through a network of more than 250 manufacturing units and strategic investments in RDC Concrete, Shalimar Paints, Emcer, Millennium Tiles, and Amstrad. The company operates through 10,000-plus retail touchpoints across India.
The company, which claims to be targeting the $255 billion (around Rs 21.8 lakh crore) building materials market, caters to institutional customers and retail outlets. It has emerged as a large player in ready mix concrete (RMC), autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) blocks and flooring tiles in India.
MARS first invested in the startup in 2022, pouring $50 million to fuel its expansion into various product categories. The fund’s latest round comes more than a year after it doubled down on Infra.Market by financing a sum of $50 million through its unicorn fund. Infra.Market sought to expand into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region through that capital raise.
