[Funding alert] BharatPe joins unicorn club with $370M infusion led by Tiger Global at $2.85B valuation

Fintech startup BharatPe has raised $370 million in Series E round led by Tiger Global at a post money-valuation of $2.85 billion to turn into a unicorn, i.e., private companies valued at $1 billion and above. This is the 19th unicorn from the Indian startup ecosystem for this year till now.

BharatPe was valued at around $900 million prior to this round of funding. In this latest round, the new investors also included Dragoneer Investment Group and Steadfast Capital.

According to the startup, five out of the seven existing institutional investors participated in the round - Coatue Management, Insight Partners, Sequoia Growth, Ribbit Capital, and Amplo.

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The primary component of the round is $350 million and secondary component of $20 million. BharatPe said all employees holding vested ESOPs have been given full liquidity in the secondary transaction.

On turning into a unicorn with the latest funding round, Ashneer Grover, Co– founder & Managing Director, BharatPe, said,

“We now have $0.5 billion cash on books and are extremely well capitalised to deliver on our mandate to build India’s first truly Digital Bank. Rarely does one witness the original thesis play out without any pivot.”

Ashneer affirmed that BharatPe would be solely focused on lending as its core business with small merchants as the primary target segment.

BharatPe has also announced that two executive level changes. Ashneer has been elevated as co-founder & managing director from the earlier role of CEO. Suhail Sameer is the new CEO of the fintech startup.

Ashneer will lead strategy, product, technology, capital among others. Suhail would be responsible for the overall business and P&L, merchant network expansion, monetisation, lending, banking foray and the brand.

On the appointment of the new CEO, Ashneer said, “He has delivered during the last one year and his ability to lead from the front. I am also honoured to invite him to the Board of Directors.”

Suhail said, “We will be able to scale the business 10x from here. We have the team, capital, technology, brand, product, market, and regulatory regime to create an immensely valuable business. The ball is in our court!”