chennai he built his business on his roots born in a village in the foothills of pachamalai in perambalur district he did a postgraduate programme in rural management from the institute of rural management irma anand in gujarat and over the next four decades worked in businesses associated with the rural segment finally d arulmany launched his own venture veritas finance private limited again a ruralfocused nbfci had spent about 25 years of my life in rural pockets this gave me a deep understanding about the financial ecosystem in rural india wherever i worked later i kept looking for opportunities in rural areas says 59yearold arulmany md ceo veritasafter irma he worked in different cooperative institutions such as oilseeds federation and tamil nadu cooperative milk producers federation limited aavin and between 1985 and 1995 at maxworth orchards and hatsun agro the turning point came after he moved as manager to cholamandalam investment and finance company limited in 1995during his 12 years with the company arulmany learned the nuances of the nbfc sector and rose to be senior vicepresident and business head handling verticals including light commercial vehicles and threewheeler financing thats where i understood that there are huge opportunities in the rural market and decided to tap it i was also fortunate enough to be mentored by industry veterans such as m anandan and p n vasudevan he says while vasudevan is the managing director and ceo of equitas small finance anandan founded aptus value housing finance india ltd arulmany joined aptus in 2009 as its president ceo following a brief stint with mumbaibased pioneer investcorp as its business headhe launched veritas with a capital of rs 43 6 crore sourced from individuals and investors in 2015 my focus was only on rural lending small businesses faced hardships in accessing credit from formal lenders because they didnt have credit history so we launched our first branch in coimbatore in 2015 he says the name veritas which means truth in latin was chosen since we relied on the rural people who are prompt in repayment arulmany adds his faith was justified the repayment rate is 98 the company primarily provides small business loans secured against selfoccupied residential property average ticket size is rs 5 lakhheadquartered in chennai the nbfc expanded in a hub and spoke model across tamil nadu from assets under management aum at hardly rs 6 crore in fy2016 veritas aum is at more than rs 3500 crore as of march 31 2023 operating in eight states with more than 285 branches it is expanding in chhattisgarh and bihar this financial year recently veritas announced it had raised an investment of rs 1200 crorehowever the nbfc with a customer base of more than 1 2 lakh people also faced rough weather in the past nine years arulmany says every capital raise was followed by a crisis either in the form of a natural disaster pandemic or financial crisis between fy16 and fy23 it had raised about rs