Indian billionaire Azim Premji leads $105 million bet on AI small-business lender

Indian billionaire Azim Premji's family office is leading an investment of up to ₹1,000 crore ($105 million) in Vegafin, a new lender that plans to use artificial intelligence to speed up loans to India's small businesses.

Premji Invest, which manages the fortune of the Wipro Ltd. founder, is putting up the money with U.S. venture firm Norwest and impact investor Lok Capital, the companies said on Wednesday. The value of each investor's share and Vegafin's valuation were not disclosed.

Vegafin will use the money to buy a majority stake in Bizloan, a Gurugram-based non-bank lender to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and has signed definitive agreements for the deal. Bizloan was founded in 2018 by Rahul Jain, Abhishek Mishra and Vikram Diwan. It makes secured loans through more than 35 branches in five states and has assets under management of more than ₹235 crore ($24.8 million).

The deal gives Vegafin a working loan book and a branch network from the start. Its management has said buying Bizloan saves 18 to 24 months compared with building a lender from scratch.

A former banker at the helm

Vegafin was founded by Bijith Bhaskar, its managing director and chief executive, who held senior roles at ICICI Bank, one of India's largest private lenders, and at Premji Invest itself. Bhaskar has argued that India needs a nationwide lender to small businesses that keeps its costs low and judges credit risk accurately.

The company plans to pair AI-driven credit checks, digital paperwork and data from outside traditional credit files with staff on the ground in branches. It will target loans of ₹8 lakh to ₹30 lakh ($8,400 to $31,600) to businesses such as neighborhood grocery stores and local pharmacies, and aims to triple its assets under management within 12 to 18 months. It plans to enter two or three more states in the next six to 12 months.

Vegafin estimates that India's small businesses face a credit gap of more than ₹30 lakh crore ($316 billion), the difference between what they need to borrow and what banks and other lenders supply.

Saravanan Nattanmai, the partner who leads financial services investments at Premji Invest, said backing lenders of this kind can strengthen small businesses, which make up a large part of India's economy. Kaustubh Jhaveri, a vice president at the firm, pointed to Vegafin's access to capital, its experienced management and its distribution reach.

Bizloan's investors include the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the charity of the Dell Technologies founder and his wife, Mohan Enterprises and BLinC Invest. The Dell foundation and Mohan Enterprises will sell out under the deal, while BLinC Invest will keep its stake. The transaction still needs any required approvals.

Premji's growing AI bets

The Vegafin investment adds to a run of AI-related deals by Premji Invest. In June it joined a $27 million seed round for Pramaana Labs, a San Francisco startup that checks whether answers produced by AI systems are correct. Its portfolio also includes data company Databricks, design platform Canva, and AI startups Writer and SpotDraft. T.K. Kurien, the firm's managing partner and chief investment officer, said in 2024 that it managed more than $10 billion and would put more money into AI companies.

Premji, 81, built Wipro from a family cooking oil business into one of India's largest software services companies before handing the chairmanship to his son Rishad in 2019. He is worth about $8 billion and is one of the world's biggest philanthropists, having given about $21 billion to the Azim Premji Foundation, which funds education in India.