Investment and Capital Fund giant Tiger Global has been making many significant investments in a number of India-based startups this year, and the latest to join the list might be fintech firm BharatPe. As per a report by TechCrunch, the investor is already in advanced stages of leading the Series E round at the three year old firm. The new round currently values BharatPe as a valuation (pre-money) of $2.5 billion, even though it has not been officially closed as yet.
The New-Delhi headquartered firm is involved in helping offline merchants set up digital payment options, while also gaining working capital. Making use of QR-code based payment methods, as well as point of sale machines, the platform also supports UPI payments. With its motto of “One QR Code for All Payments”, the interface, which is available as a mobile app, is compatible with a number of UPI payment providers, including Paytm, PhonePe, GPay, SBI, HDFC, and even WhatsApp and Amazon, among others. Also, accepting payments does not invite any additional or hidden charges, which is definitely an added plus for merchants.
Moreover, the startup, which was founded by Ashneer Grover (Co-Founder and now CEO), and Shashvat Nakrani (Co-Founder) also has two massive feathers in its cap, having come up with the country’s first card machine that comes at zero interest rates, and also providing working capital funds to small businesses, worth up to ₹7 lakh.
Prior to this apparent deal, BharatPe was valued at some $900 million, after holding its Series D financial round in Februrary 2021, with $233 million in equity, and $35 million in debt.
Serving over 6 million users, including small merchants, vendors, and businesses, the company had already deployed as many as 50,000 PoS machines as early as November last year. It currently supports over $123 million worth of transactions. The major source of its income has been its lending operations, since it is quite friendly to merchants in terms of QR Code access, not demanding any charges for the same.
Meanwhile, BharatPe has also recently teamed up with Centrum Financial Services to set up a small-scale financial bank, for which, they have obtained the go-ahead from the RBI as of Friday. It will now become the first fintech firm to get a banking license in India.
Two new product offerings are also lined up for being released by the startup as early as this month, and both of them are deemed to be Business-to-Consumer (B2C) models. In fact, one of these will be designed to allow users to gain credit directly on QR UPI, allowing for hassle free, quick buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) options.
