With the current funding round, BharatPe’s has raised a total investment of $268m in equity and debt to date
BharatPe raises $108m investment. (Credit: Niek Verlaan from Pixabay.)
Indian financial services firm BharatPe has received $108m funding in Series D equity round, led by its existing investor Coatue Management.
The seven existing institutional investors including Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital participated in the funding round.
With the current funding round, BharatPe’s has raised a total investment of $268m in equity and debt to date.
The company said that it has secured $90m in primary fundraise and ensured secondary exit for its angel investors and employees for a total amount of $18m.
BharatPe co-founder and CEO Ashneer Grover said: “We, at BharatPe, do not celebrate fund raises – it is akin to procuring raw material. We are super excited though to have returned INR 125 crores of capital to angels and all ESOP holders, earning them one of the highest returns on investment.
“The team is committed to make money for all stakeholders – investors, lenders, borrowers, employees and banks. With the balance sheet well capitalized (more than US$200M in bank), we are now going to keep our heads down and deliver US$30B TPV and build a loan book of US$ 700mn with small merchants by March 2023.”
BharatPe was established in 2018 to offer financial inclusion for Indian merchants. The firm introduced the first UPI interoperable QR code, first ZERO MDR payment acceptance service, and first UPI payment backed merchant cash advance service in India.
Also, the company has launched the only ZERO MDR card acceptance terminals, dubbed BharatSwipe, in 2020, after the onset of Covid-19 pandemic.
Last month, the company has secured $35m in debt from the three venture debt providers Alteria Capital, InnoVen Capital and Trifecta Capital, in the largest single raise.
BharatPe is one of the largest B2B fintech lenders in the country, facilitating over INR2bn ($27.5m) of loans to its merchant partners every month through its NBFC partners.
Furthermore, the company has deployed more than 50,000 PoS machines and supporting transactions exceeding INR9bn ($12m) per month on the PoS machines.
Ashneer added: “2020 has been an unprecedented year for all. However, we at BharatPe have grown exponentially – our payments business has grown 5x and our lending business has grown 10x in the last 12 months.
“This growth reiterates the trust that the small merchants and kirana store owners have showed in us. This is just the beginning of our journey and we are committed to build India’s largest B2B financial services company that can serve as one-stop destination for small merchants. For BharatPe, merchants will always be at the core of everything we build.”