Payment gateway service provider BillDesk is raising fresh capital from multinational payments processor Visa. The funding will be used by the Indian payment gateway to expand its footprints in South Asia.
The infusion of fresh capital will also help BillDesk to develop new product lines for its payments and loyalty businesses and also expand its footprint into other regions, said Visa in a public statement. It also added that the investment will be subject to necessary statutory approvals and is unlikely to have any direct bearing on Visa’s existing Indian business.
This would be Visa’s first investment for a minority stake in India. Globally, the company has invested in payment companies Klarna, Square, Behalf, Marqeta, Payworks, and Stripe, among others. The investment comes when Visa and MasterCard are facing stiff competition in India from the growth of RuPay cards and the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). And they have been pretty vocal about that.
BillDesk was founded in 2000 by MN Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Karthik Ganapathy. It provides electronic transaction processing services to banks, e-commerce companies, telecom operators, and state utilities.
The company claims to be processing over $60 billion in payments annually. It last raised funding from Singapore-based investment firm Temasek and private equity firm General Atlantic in late 2015, valuing the company at around $700 million.
The payments firm raised its first round of funding from SIDBI Venture Capital and Bank of Baroda, in 2001. After that, it raised $7.5 million in 2006 from Clearstone Venture Partners and State Bank of India. In 2012, it raised an undisclosed amount of funding from TA Associates.
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