Fintech firm BharatPe focused on offline shop-owners raises Rs 350 crore

BharatPe, a fintech company that is pioneering UPI payments and digital lending for offline shop-owners in India, has raised Rs 350 crore in its latest round of equity financing, led by leading global fintech investor Ribbit Capital and London-based hedge fund Steadview Capital. Existing investors - Sequoia Capital, Beenext Capital and Insight Partners also participated in the round.

"The funding will help us in further strengthening our lending business and consolidating our market leadership in QR payments offline,” said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and chief executive of BharatPe. “We are determined to serve the small merchant community in India, which was largely underserved by financial institutions to date.”

The company said it has established one of the largest network of merchants in India, connected through UPI based payment services. Within a year of launch, the firm has achieved $1 billion annualised TPV (total payment volume) and facilitates over 18 million UPI transactions monthly.

BharatPe said its mission is to ensure availability of easy and cheap credit for merchants and accepting digital payments free for all offline businesses. The company has already started disbursing loans to merchants on its platform and aims to become the business utility app for over 20 million offline merchants in India for all their business needs. BharatPe has established operations in 20 cities, serving about 1.5 million merchants across the country including cities such as Jaipur, Indore, Bhopal, Jodhpur, Patna Vijayawada and Warangal. The company said it is on track to serve over 5 million merchants on its network in the next one year.

In April this year, BharatPe raised $15.5 million in Series A funding from investors such as Insight Partners, Sequoia and Beenext.