BharatPe, which is a UPI and digital lending platform for offline shop owners in India, has now secured $50 Million as a part of its latest funding round, which is led by Ribbit Capital and SteadView Capital. Some of the existing investors of the company Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, and Beenext Capital also participated in the round.
According to the report revealed, the funds will now be going to be used to expand their current merchant base of 1.45 million to around five million within the next one year of time. Apart from that, funds will also be going to be used to fulfill the capital requirements of the underserved offline merchants in India by lending to them.
This latest funding round came after four months after the startup had secured the funding in the Series A of $15.5 million in the month of April this year, led by the Insight Partners. As of now, BharatPe has secured the funding in the fourth round which has been worth around $68 million.
The startup which is founded by Ashneer and Shashvat in 2018, the company is working towards driving the adoption of the UPI among the merchants and has been established operations in around 20 cities which include Delhi, Pune, Gurgaon, Indore, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Hyderabad.
We are determined to serve the small merchant community in India, which was largely underserved by financial institutions till date.
Ashneer Grover, Co-founder and CEO of BharatPe
The BharatPe offers a single interface for all the UPI apps which includes Google Pay, BHIM, MobiKwik, Paytm, PhonePe, TrueCaller, and FreeCharge, and some others, the company even empowers the merchants to accept the UPI payment for free through the BharatPe QR code.
The continued support of our investors is a 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 Grover, Co-founder and CEO of BharatPe
