[Funding alert] BankBazaar raises Rs 45 Cr from WSV and existing investors

Bank Bazaar, a Chennai-based online financial services marketplace with 100 million visits per quarter, has raised Rs 45 crore in financing from new investor WSV – a joint venture fund of Walden International and Korean company SKTA – and its existing investors including Amazon, Sequoia India, Experian, and Eight Roads. SKTA is part of the Korean conglomerate SK Group, the second largest conglomerate in South Korea. 

In a statement, the company said the latest capital raise is part of BankBazaar’s Series D1 equity financing round, and the proceeds are earmarked for accelerating the delivery of contactless personal finance products and business expansion in India. 

Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar, said, 

“BankBazaar has spent the last decade in building world-class infrastructure to enable Indians access financial products online from leading lenders across the country. In the post-COVID-19 world, the demand for contactless finance is going to grow exponentially, and this round of funding will help us accelerate our plans to implement contactless access to credit. This round of funding reiterates our investors’ trust in our vision of contactless finance as the future of personal finance and in our ability to make it a reality.”

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BankBazaar claims to register 40M users, aims to be EBITDA profitable by March 2020

BankBazaar believes that its mission of paperless access to the right credit products is the need of the hour during the COVID-19 crisis, and consumers, banks, government, and regulators have recognised this as the future. 

“BankBazaar is creating the ‘Credit Karma’ of India with leading edge technology, a stellar team, and the support of an incredible set of strategic investors. We can’t wait to see how they help revolutionize the Indian financial services sector,” added Andrew Kau, General Partner with WSV. 

Led by growth in customer base and reduction in costs, BankBazaar achieved operational month-on-month profitability in March 2020 when the lockdown was announced. Between October 2019 and February 2020, BankBazaar claims it saw a 90 percent increase in monthly organic traffic and its registered customer base rose to over 40 million. The company also saw a 53 percent increase in monthly revenue and a 15 percent reduction in costs during the same period despite tough market conditions. 

“BankBazaar has always been focused on achieving EBITDA profitability, and going forward, profitability continues to be our top priority. We look forward to accelerating contactless credit from leading financiers, and with this round, have enough capital to get soon to break even and beyond,” stated Adhil.

Including this recent round, BankBazaar, which claims to have been chosen by over 50+ of India’s leading financial institutions to integrate themselves with the platform, has so far raised $116 million in funding from investors.

BankBazaar competes with the likes of SoftBank-backed PolicyBazaar and Accel-backed Coverfox.