Digital payments aggregator BharatPe, said on Monday that it has raised $50 million led by US-based fintech fund Ribbit Capital, and hedge fund Steadview Capital. Existing investors – Sequoia Capital, Beenext Capital and Insight Partners also participated in the round.
The one-year-old firm currently claims to have an annualized Total Payment Volume (TPV) of $1 billion, and facilitates 18 million United Payments Interface (UPI) payments every month.
Started by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani, former executives at grocery firm Grofers, while it started it as aggregator of digital payment option for small businesses, it has also forayed into lending earlier this year. In March this year, it also appointed actor Salman Khan as its brand ambassador.
BharatPe has established operations in 20 cities, serving over 14.5 Lakh merchants across Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and other cities.
It raised a Series A round of $15.5 million from Insight Partners, a New York-based private investment firm, and existing investors Sequoia and Beenext participating as well.
Mint reported on July 17 that Steadview Capital plans to invest $500 million in growth-stage companies in India over the next two years with investments ranging from $20-40 million per deal. The hedge fund, which has previously invested in unicorns, such as Flipkart and Ola, is looking at consumer internet startups in vertical e-commerce, content and fintech.
Source: Mint