Janaadhar group receives Rs 54 crore funding for affordable housing projects

Bengaluru:  Janaadhar (India) Pvt. ltd, an affordable house maker, announced raising of Rs 54 crore funds for its various upcoming projects. 

The fund raising round was led by Treeline Asia Master Fund, a leading hedge fund based out of Hong Kong and Singapore. 

Some of the notable investors in the initial fund raising round include, Narayan Ramachandran, ex-Country Head of Morgan Stanley India, Vallabh Bhansali, veteran market expert and Vikram Gandhi, a globally respected investment banker who recently returned to India to work on social impact initiatives.

Janaadhar primarily focusses on lower end of the India’s housing market known as Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Lower Income Group (LIG). Importantly, it is the only Affordable Housing company in India that has a unique structure as a Social Business, with the entire promoter stake being held in a not-for-profit company, Jana Urban Foundation. It is founded by Ramesh Ramanathan, a social entrepreneur, and co-founder of Jana Group of institutions, a company press release said.

Raghunath Srinivasan, Executive Director of Janaadhar said, “We are very happy to have closed this round of funding – it’s a validation of our approach to addressing issues of affordable housing in a unique social business model, and we are especially delighted to have such a distinguished group of investors coming on board.  We look forward to executing our ambitious plans and expand our affordable housing footprint across multiple cities in the coming 2-3 years.”

 Zaheer Sitabkhan, Director at Treeline added, "Tree Line is very happy to be associated with Janaadhar, which seeks to institutionalize an unorganized sector and bring benefits to all involved."

Narayan Ramachandran said, “I am delighted to be associated with Janaadhar which I am certain will play an important role in the area of affordable housing, which is a national priority. The need of the hour is to provide large scale, high quality housing at low cost to the underserved”.

Vikram Gandhi, Founder Asha Impact, and one of the key investors in Janaadhar said, “We look forward to working with a highly successful and respected social entrepreneur such as Ramesh Ramanathan and his team at Janaadhar to help the company scale up and become a leading developer of low cost housing on a pan India basis, as well as actively engaging with the Central and State authorities to help achieve the government's mission of housing for every citizen by 2022."