Ratan Tata’s UC-RNT Fund invests in Mswipe Technologies’ $31 million funding round

UC-RNT Fund, a joint investment vehicle from Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata and the University of California, has led a $31 million funding round in Mumbai-based point-of-sale venture Mswipe Technologies.

With this investment round, the fund gives complete exit to Axis Bank, which was an early investor in Mswipe. Axis Bank held about 8 percent stake in the six-year-old company and sold it off for around $12 million.

As per the reports, a number of Mswipe’s existing investors have participated in the new funding round, including US-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital, investment company Meru Capital, ride-hailing app Ola, DSG Consumer Partners, and Matrix Partners.

This new funding round values the Mumbai-based company at about $200 million. The newly-raised funds should be enough to support the company for the next two odd years.

Founded by Manish Patel in 2011, Mswipe has around 2.4 lakh terminals deployed across more than 500 locations in the country. The company claims to have recorded annual transactions of about ₹8,850 crore.

The company recently acquired the offline point-of-sales business of PayU and has also tied up with Sodexo and Samsung Pay to expand its acceptance infrastructure.

Further, it is also working on smartPoS devices which work independent of a smartphone and accepts payments like UPI (Unified Payments Interface), BharatQR and Aadhaar-enabled Payments System, along with card payments. Around 5,000 of such devices are being used by merchants like Spicejet for their on-air sales and by the Mumbai Police.

Post-demonetisation, the point-of-sales businesses received a huge boost with new orders coming in from banks, as well as renewed interest from even small merchants. The number of terminals shot up by 10 lakh within three months after November 8, the date on which the central government announced demonetisation.

The UC-RNT fund, set up last year, is a joint investment vehicle for Ratan Tata and the University of California. The firm marked its first major investment when it invested in Ola, along with Falcon Edge Capital, earlier in April this year. Last month, it also invested in CureFit, a health and fitness venture founded by Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal, along with Ankit Nagori, who also previously worked as an executive at Flipkart.