The neobanking sector in India is growing slowly but steadily and has the potential to revolutionize the fintech sector and become a viable alternative to traditional banks. Thus, it is no wonder that Indian neobanks are on the rise, and Indian neobank Jupiter has been one such name that is rapidly making a mark. This time, it raised nearly $86 million as part of its Series C funding round, according to regulatory filings.
The round was led by Tiger Global and included participation from QED Investors, Sequoia India, and Matrix Partners, as well as 3one4 Capital and BEENEXT, among others. Japan’s largest, MUFG Bank has also joined in as a new investor. This comes months after Jupiter had raised $45 million in its Series B funding round to be valued at nearly $300 million. This latest round puts the valuation of the firm at around $710 million.
The neobank now needs less than $300 million to reach the $1 billion mark, at which point it will become the latest Indian firm to become a unicorn (and India has got many of those this year, a record in itself).
However, we might have to wait for that, given that Jupiter has no plans to raise more funds in the coming 12-18 months. It has not yet used the capital it raised from its previous round and is yet to deploy nearly half of the $25 million funds it raised in its Series A round.
The proceeds from the current funding round will be utilized towards investing in customer acquisition to have a million customers by April 2022, and it also intends to enter the lending segment next year to provide personal loans and a credit line to individuals. What makes this funding round special is that Tiger Global, which has invested in several Indian startups this year, has agreed not to invest in any Indian neobank that competes with Jupiter.
Neobanks have raised an impressive amount of funds this year, which seems to be a by-product of the impressive times the fintech sector has been going through this year. In fact, it had raised $7.4 billion in funding across 260 deals this year (as of December 4) and was the second-highest funded sector – overall, Indian startups have raised a record $36 billion in funding this year, and things do not look to change anytime soon.
The two-year-old Jupiter, founded by Jitendra Gupta, clocked ₹11.79 crores in revenue in FY21, a growth of 215%, as well as a rise in expenses from ₹6 crores in FY20 to ₹26 crores in FY21. It was launched in beta this year and is set to end the year at over $60 million worth of transactions. The “100% digital bank” lets users open an online bank account with features such as real-time spend insights, tracking liquid assets across bank accounts, and sending or receiving funds via UPI, as well as a Visa debit card.
