Avendus Finance Pvt. Ltd, the non-banking financial services arm of investment bank Avendus Capital, has invested Rs63 crore as structured debt in advertising services firm Ad2Pro Media Solutions Pvt. Ltd, two people aware of the development said on Monday.
One-fifth of the capital is from Avendus Structured Credit Fund, a Rs500 crore debt fund Avendus Capital floated in August last year. The latest deal is the first from the new fund.
The investment will be used by the promoters of Ad2Pro to buy out the shareholding of venture capital firm VentureEast, the lone institutional investor in the company, and invest in business operations, said Ad2Pro executive chairman Gopal Krishnan over the phone.
VentureEast had invested about $3 million in Ad2Pro in 2008, he said.
Founded in 2006 by Krishnan and Todd Brownrout, Ad2Pro is an advertising solutions company that develops creative strategy and content for media and retail customers mainly in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Krishnan said Ad2Pro has been profitable since 2008-09. He declined to share the revenue figures.
“Moving forward, we are optimistic about the future of Ad2Pro Group and our partnership with Avendus. We feel well positioned to move on to our next stage of growth based on our work with them,” Krishnan said.
For Avendus Finance, which was set up in November 2016, the deal falls under its target lending segment of mid-market profitable businesses in healthcare, industrials, education and information technology and IT-enabled sectors.
Last month, it announced a structured debt deal of Rs55 crore with Rao Edusolutions Pvt. Ltd, that operates a pan-India network of competitive exam coaching centres.
Other businesses that have raised credit from Avendus Finance include Hyderabad-based hospital chain Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences Ltd, auto component maker Mahindra Sona Ltd, and OmniActive Health Technologies Ltd, a nutraceutical ingredients manufacturer.
Avendus Finance is part of investment banking-focused Avendus group, which also operates alternative asset management and wealth management businesses.
Since its launch, Avendus Finance has extended credit worth Rs800 crore to companies and expects to grow the balance sheet to Rs2,000 crore by 2019.
Source: Mint