City-born Saurav Ghosh, co-founder of alternate investment platform Jiraaf, is bullish on debt and fixed-income instruments following the changes in the budget in debt mutual funds and market-linked debentures.

Jiraaf was launched in September 2021 by investment professionals Ghosh and Vineet Agarwal and its offerings include unlisted corporate debt, invoice discounting, asset-backed leasing and venture debt/revenue-based financing. The company has recorded an annualised rate of return between 8 per cent and 20 per cent on tenors ranging from 3 days to 3 years with a minimum ticket size of Rs 1 lakh.

“We have till date disbursed more than Rs 1,500 crore through the platform. We actively manage almost about Rs 700 crore of AUM. We have returned more than Rs 800 crore of capital to our investors. We are at a run rate where we are doing close to Rs 175 crore on a month-on-month basis. We have more than 80,000 registered investors with us,” Ghosh said.

The scenario for the fintech firm has changed after the budget, and the company now expects to clock Rs 500 crore per month in 2023-24.

“There are two things that happened in the recent budget. One was debt mutual funds now being at par with any other debt instruments. Earlier, they were getting indexation benefits. So people used to not end up participating directly in debt but through debt mutual funds. Now with that benefit being taken away, investing directly in debt has become attractive again,” said Ghosh.

He added that the budget has also clarified the regulatory arbitrage around market-linked debentures making the products that the company offers more attractive.

“I would say with the choppiness of the equity market and given the recent regulatory changes, actually the outlook for debt and fixed income products look very bright,” he further said.

The platform is backed by two large investors — Accel Partners and Mumbai-based Mankekar Family Office. “We have raised seven and a half million dollars and from a future perspective we don’t need much capital for growth.”

“We will also break even as a business operationally in the next 6-12 months on a very conservative basis.”

Jiraaf has also applied for a stock broking license and alternate investment fund license.

“Any funds raised will go towards these growth verticals. But otherwise for our core business and offerings, we are okay,” he said.