BharatPe on cusp of turning unicorn after latest funding round

BharatPe on cusp of turning unicorn after latest funding round

The start-up raised $108 million to hit the valuation of $900 million.

BharatPe

NEW DELHI: Digital payments platform BharatPe is on the cusp of turning unicorn after raising Rs 786 crore ($108 million) in Series D equity round. With this, the company has raised a total of Rs 1,950 crore or $900 million in equity and debt till date.

The round was led by the company’s existing investor Coatue Management and all seven existing institutional investors participated — Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital.

BharatPe co-founder & CEO Ashneer Grover said, “We are super excited to have returned Rs 125 crore 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 capitalised (more than$200 million in bank), we are now going to keep our heads down and deliver $30 billion TPV and build a loan book of $700 million with small merchants by March 2023.”

This latest funding round comes a month after BharatPe announced that it had raised Rs 249 crore ($35 million) in debt from three renowned venture debt providers – Alteria Capital, InnoVen Capital and Trifecta Capital – in the largest single raise. In February 2020, the fintech company had raked in $75 million in a Series C fundraise. Since then, the three-year-old start-up has seen its valuation jump by almost $500 million.

Envisioned as a single-window for all existing UPI apps, BharatPe was launched in 2018. The company supports Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM, Mobikwik, Freecharge, Truecaller and other apps through its service.

Using BharatPe, merchants can track their transactions and settlements across these apps, manage sales records and also claim cashback. The company claims to have over 1.8 million merchants on board and has reportedly achieved $1 billion annual total purchase value (TPV) and facilitates over 18 million UPI transactions monthly.