The concept of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is not a new one, but it is the pandemic that actually brought it to the mainstream and drove its adoption, at least in India. If you are unaware of the concept, BNPL allows you to make purchases now and pay the amount over a period of time, which may vary.
The growth of the e-commerce market in India over the past two years has led to a similar growth of the BNPL sector. In fact, it is slated to grow to $45-50 billion by 2026, and the number of BNPL users is expected to grow to 80-100 million. This, unsurprisingly, has led to old and new firms entering the sector and a steady flow of capital from global and domestic investors.
This time, fintech startup Rupifi, which provides B2B BNPL services, has gobbled up $25 million in its latest financing round, which was led by Tiger Global and Bessemer Venture Partners. The round also included participation from its existing investors Quona Capital and Ankur Capital. With this round, Rupifi aims to expand its B2B payments offerings in its existing markets and enter new ones. Funding had evolved into a major keyword last year, and it seems that 2022 will be a similar one.
“It has been a roller-coaster ride in the past two years since we started Rupifi and to get two of the largest global investors on board is a validation of our thesis, our belief, and everyone’s hard work at Rupifi. I am fortunate to have the best people around me every day at work as we strive to do better in the future, building customer-focused products for India,” wrote Anubhav Jain, co-founder, Rupifi.
The two-year-old startup works with over two dozen B2B marketplaces, including Walmart, Flipkart, and Jumbotail, to serve their business partners (mostly SMEs) with working capital ranging from ₹10, 000 to ₹10, 00,000.
Rupifi’s work is important in a nation where access to proper credit still eludes the majority of the population. Small businesses generate capital through selling their inventories due to a lack of proper credit, which is one of the reasons why they are falling behind in the race and failing to catch up to powerhouses such as Amazon.
In the future, Rupifi will expand its product offerings – even now it is building an embedded checkout product that will be present on the company’s app and website and power all payment options to process the payment. It is also working on a commercial card for SMEs that have “exceedingly demonstrated good behavior with our BNPL service.”
The SaaS-enabled Rupifi usually works with NBFCs to generate the capital and claims to have provided credit to over 50,000 sellers till date. The startup partners with aggregators and connects them to lenders through API integrations, and examines the data of the partner marketplace for its underwriting to determine who should get credit and how much they should get.
