Sequoia-backed Indian fintech startup BharatPe secures $6.8m in debt financing

Indian fintech player BharatPe has raised 500 million rupees (US$6.8 million) in debt from local digital finance platform Northern Arc Capital, marking its sixth round of debt financing this year.

BharatPe team / Photo credit: BharatPe

The development comes after the Sequoia-backed company secured about US$26 million from three debt companies – Alteria Capital, InnoVen Capital, and Trifecta Capital – in January this year. BharatPe also later raised additional capital from ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, according to a statement.

Founded in 2018, BharatPe operates a payments platform for offline retailers and businesses, currently serving over 6 million merchants across 100 cities in India. The startup said it has facilitated disbursement of loans totaling to over 16 billion rupees (US$218 million) to its merchants to date.

“We have considerably ramped up our lending business in the last year and have set an ambitious target of facilitating disbursals to the tune of US$1 billion to over 1 million merchants by the end of [fiscal year 2022],” said Suhail Sameer, BharatPe’s group president.

Earlier this year, the startup raised US$108 million from investors such as Coatue Management, Beenext, and Sequoia Capital, pushing its valuation to around US$900 million. At the time, BharatPe said it has seen its payments business grow 5x and its lending business grow 10x compared to the same period last year.

Currency converted from rupee to US dollar: US$1 = 73.34 rupees.