New Delhi, Feb 26 (IANS): Fintech services company BharatPe on Friday said it has already surpassed its target of facilitating disbursal of Rs 1,000 crores of business loans in FY 2020-21, to its merchant partners.

While stating that it has enabled loans to over 1.1 lakh merchants across over 75 cities in India, BharatPe said it is likely to end up facilitating disbursals of Rs 1,250 crores in FY 21.

Some of the top performing cities and areas today for the lending business include Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune.

Also, the top categories for loans were groceries, food and beverages, and fashion, retail and beauty.

"We have set ourselves a target of enabling credit for 10 lakh small merchants and kirana store owners in FY22, totalling up to $1bn in disbursals," Suhail Sameer, Group President, BharatPe, said in a statement.

"We believe that the next level of growth for our lending business will be driven by merchants in the tier-2, 3 and 4 towns and cities," Sameer said, adding that the company is working on expanding its lending portfolio and will be offering a host of secured and unsecured lending products for merchants as well as distributors and wholesalers in the new fiscal.

BharatPe recently announced that it has raised $108 mn in Series D equity round, at a valuation of $900 mn.

The round was led by the company's existing investor Coatue Management.

All seven existing institutional investors participated in the round -- Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital.