It is always joyous to partner with best-in-class entrepreneurs and on this day, we wish to discuss one of our more successful business partners – Suryoday Small Finance Bank. The Listing of a portfolio entity is the ultimate aim for any Fund Manager and provides us with a sense of accomplishment which is even more invigorating than the returns from the investment.
Looking back at history; in 2007, we see a young but experienced and passionate man deciding to further the initiative of financial inclusion in the Indian Economy by catering to the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ Indians. The journey, as stated by the man himself, has been tremendously exciting with multiple ups and downs, but sheer determination, performance, and focus has enabled Suryoday to reach the stage they are in now.
Moving forward to 2017, Suryoday as a micro finance institution contested for the small finance bank license against several others. As a star performer which matched all of RBI’s criteria, Suryoday was awarded a Small Finance Bank License on 23rd Jan 2017. This marked the beginning of a new journey for Suryoday and it has not turned back since. It subsequently grew 4x in AUM from ~1,000 Cr to the ~4,000 Cr level it is at now.
TCF has always been resolute in its pursuit of “Empowering the Next Gen Entrepreneurs”. As such, Baskar Babu, a man with focus, passion, and the ability to deliver performance, ensured that Suryoday figured easily as a potential business partner for TCF. Further, we believed that the services being offered by Suryoday to unbanked India had significant potential for growth while also facilitating financial inclusion at a great scale. Despite the economy facing serious pull back post demonetization in Nov 2016, TCF decided to partner with Suryoday given the trust we had on management to deliver. TVS Capital continued its confidence in the bank by investing from 2 of its schemes (funds) in Feb 2017 and March 2019.
Overall, Suryoday has delivered a stellar performance over the last 4 years, setting new benchmarks for their peers consistently. Despite COVID being hard on the economy and businesses, Suryoday found a way to overcome the impact of the virus and was expeditious in its recovery. The confidence that many other investors have also shown in the bank over the last year further speak to the belief, hardwork and dedication of the management.
We are extremely proud to be partners with the bank and wish them immense success in their next chapter post the IPO. Great work @bhaskar Babu and team Suryoday. We are inspired by your journey.
We, at TVS Capital, continue our journey to “Empower the next gen entrepreneurs”.
Team TVS Capital Funds