MobiKwik invests Rs 2 Cr in Pune-based data science company Pivotchain Solutions

In a bid to strengthen its fintech portfolio, digital payments platform MobiKwik on Monday announced it has made a strategic investment of Rs 2 crore in Pune-based data science company Pivotchain Solutions.

Pivotchain is a predictive analytics company with expertise in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, and has built exclusive AI and deep learning models for MobiKwik. The Gurgaon-based payments firm said these models will be instrumental for MobiKwik as it rolls out numerous lending products to address the credit requirements of its user base.

Speaking on the strategic investment, Bipin Preet Singh, Founder and CEO, MobiKwik, said,

“MobiKwik is transforming from a leading digital payments player to India’s largest digital financial services platform. Delivering high quality fintech products will require immense focus on data, and an in-depth understanding of the user requirements, across categories. Pivotchain is doing incredible work in alternate data scoring, predictive modeling and risk management and this investment will give us an edge over competition.”

Deepak Rao, Founder and CEO, Pivotchain Solutions, said, “We are glad to be part of MobiKwik family. MobiKwik has been a flag bearer in the payments industry and we look forward to working with MobiKwik and deliver the right lending solution across the user base.”

In August last year, MobiKwik had announced it had raised Rs 225 crore from Bajaj Finance Ltd for approximately 11 percent stake in the company. The funding also marked MobiKwik's entry into the credit lending space. Claiming to be a credit and debit wallet, the partnership allows Bajaj Finance to extend credit facilities through MobiKwik’s mobile app.

At present, MobiKwik claims to have a network of over 3 million merchants and a registered user base of 107 million users. The company aims to hit $20 billion in terms of transactions by 2022.

Competitors Flipkart-owned PhonePe and Paytm have already clocked $20 billion and $29 billion, respectively, in annual total payment value (TPV) run rate. In terms of total users, while PhonePe recently crossed the 100 million mark, Paytm claims its total users to be around 300 million. The total number of merchants on the platform stands at 7 million for Paytm, and approximately 300,000 for PhonePe.