Lending and digital payments startup BharatPe has raised close to $108 million in Series D primary and secondary equity funding led by existing investor New York-headquartered hedge fund Coatue Management at a valuation of $900 million, said a company executive.
All of BharatPe’s seven investors including Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital participated in this round. The primary infusion constituted $90 million of the total fund-raise, with $18 million secondary funding, providing an exit to most of its angel investors.
The funding comes a year after it raised $75 million in its Series C funding round in February 2020.
The three-year-old company has seen its valuation jump by almost $500 million since then.
BharatPe aims to raise another $100 million post-March, as it looks to ramp up its credit offerings.
Mint in January first reported on BharatPe’s plan to raise $200 million, and close $100 million in equity funding in the current financial year.
“The Series D round got oversubscribed within the last two weeks of December 2020. We will continue to focus on our plans with this fund-raise, and continue deepening the credit ecosystem for our merchants. We are clear that we want to stay aligned with categories in financial services that will provide us margins, contributing to our growth,” said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and chief executive officer, BharatPe.
The startup has also teamed up with Centrum Group to submit a joint expression of interest to the Reserve Bank of India to take over the distressed assets of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank. The fresh funding will also help the company put liquidity into the bank for depositors, with plans to turn PMC Bank into a digital-first entity. Grover declined to comment on this.
BharatPe plans to raise close to $500 million in debt by FY23 and has already raised $35 million from venture debt providers Alteria Capital, Trifecta Capital and InnoVen recently. It now aims to raise $200 million debt from banks and other institutions this year, Grover said.
The company will also look to enter the secured loans segment and provide merchants with loans against gold and property, as well as diversify into newer segments such as automobile loans.
BharatPe processes over $7 billion in annualized total payment value (TPV) on Unified Payments Interface, across six million merchants in 75 cities.
Over the past year, the company beefed up its product offerings in the market including point-of-sale card terminals offering BharatSwipe and close-loop loyalty cards. It has also been focusing on newer merchant segments to disburse credit. BharatSwipe aims to clock $1.5 billion in annual TPV run rate and is present in 10 cities. The company aims to scale this product to 100 cities by the end of FY23.
