[Funding alert] Merchant-focussed fintech startup BharatPe raises $50M in Series B funding

BharatPe, UPI payments and digital lending platform for offline shop-owners in India, on Monday said that it has raised $50 million (about Rs 350 crore) as a part of its latest round of funding, led by Ribbit Capital and London-based hedge fund Steadview Capital. Existing investors including Sequoia Capital, Beenext Capital, and Insight Partners also participated in the round. 

According to the founders, the funds from this round will be deployed to expand their current merchant base of 1.45 million to over five million within the next one year. The funds will also be used to fulfill the capital requirements of the under-served offline merchants in India by lending to them.

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This funding comes just four months after the startup had raised their Series A round of $15.5 million in April this year, led by US-based Insight Partners. With this round, BharatPe has raised four rounds of funding worth a total of $68 million till date. 

Co-founded in 2018 by Ashneer Grover, and Shashvat Nakrani, the company is working towards driving the adoption of UPI among merchants, and has established operations in 20 cities namely, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Indore, Bhopal, Nagpur, Chandigarh, and Jaipur. 

“We are determined to serve the small merchant community in India, which was largely underserved by financial institutions till date.” adds Ashneer Grover, Co-founder and CEO of BharatPe. 

Providing a single interface for all UPI apps (including Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM, MobiKwik, Freecharge, Truecaller, and a hundred others), the company empowers the merchants to accept UPI payments for free through the BharatPe QR. Further, merchants can sign up instantly and start receiving funds immediately in their bank account. 

The company in a statement said that within a year of launch, the company claims to have achieved $1 billion annualised TPV and currently facilitates over 18 million UPI transactions monthly.  

"The continued support of our investors is testament to their belief in BharatPe, and we are grateful for such ardent supporters. The funding will help us in further strengthening our lending business and consolidating our market leadership in QR payments offline." Ashneer added. 

 The company also said that it is on track to serve over 50 lakh merchants on its network in the next one year.

BharatPe’s investor Ribbit has also invested in other fintech startups in India including,  RazorPay, Capital Float, PolicyBazaar, and ZestMoney. While Steadview’s marquee investments in India include Flipkart, Ola, and Bajaj Finserv.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)

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