India’s BharatPe banks $6.9m in the third tranche of its debt fund financing

Fintech firm BharatPe announced it has raised 50 crore rupees (US$6.9 million) in debt from Trifecta Capital, a venture debt fund focused on new economy businesses.

Ashneer Grover, co-founder and CEO of BharatPe / Photo credit: BharatPe

This latest fundraise marks the third tranche of BharatPe’s debt fund financing. The company recently raised 199 crore rupees (US$28 million) in debt from venture debt providers Alteria Capital and ICICI Bank. This brings the fintech firm’s total funds raised in January 2021 to 249 crore rupees (US$35 million).

The India-based company has raised close to US$178 million in equity and debt to date.

BharatPe provides financial services, such as zero merchant discount rate (MDR) payment acceptance and unified payments interface (UPI) payment-backed merchant cash advance, across 65 cities in India.

The fresh funds will help the company offer loans to underserved small merchants and mom-and-pop store owners across the country.

“BharatPe is committed to empower small merchants and kirana (local) store owners with easy-to-use and secure fintech products,” said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and CEO of BharatPe.

The company said that it grew 30x in 2019, with over 60 million UPI transactions each month, and that it had processed annualized transactions worth US$7 billion that same year.

Additionally, it claimed to have disbursed of over 800 crore rupees (US$109.6 million) to its merchants since it was founded in 2018, with its point of sales business growing to US$2 billion in annualized transaction value within three months of its launch.

BharatPe aims to disburse 1,000 crore rupees (US$137 million) in loans by March 2021 and US$2 billion in loans by March 2023.

“We aspire to become a digital bank that can serve as a one-stop destination for all merchant needs, and lending business will play a key role in this journey,” said the company’s group president Suhail Sameer.

See also: In India, mom and pop stores are proving to be the holy grail for tech startups

Investors who have backed the company in the past include Beenext, Sequoia, SteadView Capital, Ribbit Capital, Coatue Management LLC, Insight Partners, and Amplo.