Pune-based fintech OneCard has become the lastest to grace the lineup of Indian Unicorn startups, as the firm’s latest series D round closed at $100 Mn, pushing its valuation past the $1 Bn mark.
The round saw OneCard bring onboard a new investor in the form of Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek, who emerged as leaders of the round at $48 Mn, followed by existing backers like Sequoia Capital, Ocean View Investment, QED Holdings, Matrix Partners, Hummingbird among others.
Founded by Vaibhav Hathi, Anurag Sinha and Rupesh Kumar, FPL technologies’ product Onecard has become the second credit card startup to enter the unicorn circle after Slice. Onecard offered users credit cards in collaboration with banks like Federal Bank, IDFC Bank, Bank of Baroda’s BOB Financial Solutions, South Indian Bank, and State Bank of Mauritius. FPL Technologies also offers OneScore, a platform to digitally monitor credit scores and related insights. Unlike Slice, OneCard’s target demographic for their metal cards are premium customers with credible credit scores. The company has issued about 2.5 lakh credit cards across 12 Indian cities so far.
While the Reserve Bank of India has been cracking down heavily on non-banking startups offering credit lines via PPI instruments like stored-value Cards, OneCard has remained out of the RBI’s radar, largely due to their partnering with several established, high category banks like IDFC First and Bank of Baroda.
With this round, the company has been valued at $1.4 Bn, a substantial increase from its previous valuation of $750 Mn, at the end of its series C round in January, which the company closed at $75 Mn. While the company did log a sizeable increase in revenue for FY21 at INR 16.3 Cr, it also saw a jaw-dropping 423% increase in its expenses, totalling up to INR 49.5 Cr.
