Tilak Ventures is a Mumbai-based financial services firm that began life in 1980 as a plain-vanilla finance company, then spent the next four decades shape-shifting - through a stint in travel technology, a return to its original name, and a final rebranding in 2014 - before settling into its current form as a listed Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) that hunts for yield in corners of the market that banks and larger financiers tend to overlook. The recurring approach is simple: deploy capital where it is scarce - whether that means lending to parties the formal sector ignores, trading physical commodities on thin margins, or running a proprietary book of equities and bonds - and keep the structure lean enough to pivot when one engine cools. # Business segments Three engines running at different speeds - a lending-and-investing book that provides the core financial identity, a physical commodities desk that has swung between dominant and secondary, and a small e-commerce experiment already marked for exit - each reflecting the same instinct to put money where the formal sector is absent. ## 1. Finance: lending to the overlooked and trading for the house **The company earns by making unsecured loans to parties it knows personally and by running a proprietary investment book of equities, mutual funds, bonds and derivatives - it is a lender and a trader rolled into one.** - **Regulated by choice, not by compulsion** - in multiple years the company’s financial assets exceeded half its total assets, yet its trading income stayed below half of gross income, which meant it did not meet the legal threshold requiring NBFC registration under the RBI Act - so the full weight of NBFC regulation did not apply. ## 2. Commodities trading: buying and selling physical goods on tight cycles **A straightforward merchant business - it buys fabrics, chemicals and gold, holds them as inventory, and sells entirely within India, collecting payment within 30 to 90 days.** - **Inventory that turns into revenue on dispatch** - revenue is recognised the moment goods leave the warehouse and risk passes to the buyer, with stock valued at the lower of cost or what it could fetch in the market. - **A mix that shifts with opportunity** - in FY21 the company sold only fabrics, while the previous year it sold chemicals and gold; the segment has swung from over 93% of total turnover in FY20 to less than half by FY23. - **Domestic-only, with receivables kept short** - all sales happen inside India, and trade receivables - about ₹1.06 crore as of March 2025 - are unsecured but considered fully recoverable, with none owed by directors or officers. ## 3. Wisycart: a brief detour into office supplies, already being sold **Through its subsidiary Yosto Ventures, the company bought a majority stake in an e-commerce platform selling stationery and housekeeping supplies to businesses - and within two years decided to exit.** - **A D2C play in a fragmented market** - Wisycart.com sold everyday office supplies directly to SMEs, public-sector units, corporates and logistics firms, promising delivery within 48 to 72 hours in a market otherwise dominated by unorganised stationery shops and commission agents with no quality assurance. - **Small, city-bound and founder-led** - as of early 2023 the platform operated in just three cities - Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai - and was founded in 2020 by a chartered accountant. - **Bought for ₹76.5 lakh, sold for ₹16.7 lakh** - Tilak Ventures acquired a 51% stake in February 2023 and in June 2025 approved the sale of its entire holding to a promoter-linked HUF, after the subsidiary contributed barely 3% of consolidated revenue and less than a quarter of a percent of consolidated net worth in its last full year. # Group structure and partners **The company sits inside a tight web of promoter-controlled entities - three corporate promoters hold just over half the equity, the managing director’s family occupies key roles, and a series of unquoted investments and convertible instruments tie the balance sheet to related parties.** - **Promoters who consolidated through a merger** - in FY21, two promoter entities merged into Banas Finance Limited by NCLT order, transferring a combined 33.9% stake and making Tilak Ventures an associate of Banas Finance, which then bought more shares from the open market to reach 35.5%. - **A balance sheet woven with related-party paper** - the company holds unquoted equity in Hunnar Jewels Ltd (formerly Agrawal Bullion, a promoter entity) worth over ₹10 crore, plus zero-coupon optionally convertible debentures of the same entity worth ₹4.69 crore, alongside preference shares in other private companies. - **Key roles held by a single family** - the managing director and CEO is Girraj Kishor Agrawal; the non-executive director is his spouse Tanu Girraj Agrawal, who also holds directorships in multiple promoter companies; the CFO is Tarannum Bano. - **Capital raised through two rights issues, no dividends paid** - a FY22 rights issue at ₹5 per share and a FY25 rights issue at ₹2.20 per share together expanded the equity base to roughly 44.6 crore shares of Re. 1 each; the company has not paid a dividend.