BharatPe raises USD 108 mn in Series D at a valuation of USD 900 mn

By Edil Corneille

Today, BharatPe, an Indian financial services company for merchants, announced the raise of USD 108 million in its Series D equity round, at a valuation of USD 900 million. The company further shared that it has raised USD 90 million in the primary fundraise and also ensured secondary exit for its angel investors and employees for a total amount of USD 18 million.

Led by existing investor Coatue Management, the round saw participation from all other existing institutional investors – Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital. With this round, the company has raised a total of USD 268 million in equity and debt to date.

The Series D round got oversubscribed within the last 2 weeks of December 2020. In the Series D round, existing institutional investors of the company showed their intent to consolidate the cap table and hence, BharatPe gave the opportunity to all angels and ESOP holders to liquidate.

Ashneer Grover, Co-Founder and CEO, BharatPe said, “We, at BharatPe, do not celebrate fund raises – it is akin to procuring raw material. We are super excited though to have returned INR 125 crores of capital to angels and all ESOP holders, earning them one of the highest returns on investment. The team is committed to make money for all stakeholders – investors, lenders, borrowers, employees and banks. With the balance sheet well capitalized (more than US$ 200M in bank), we are now going to keep our heads down and deliver US$30B TPV and build a loan book of US$ 700mn with small merchants by March 2023.”

Ashneer added, “2020 has been an unprecedented year for all. However, we at BharatPe have grown exponentially – our payments business has grown 5x and our lending business has grown 10x in the last 12 months. This growth reiterates the trust that the small merchants and kirana store owners have showed in us. This is just the beginning of our journey and we are committed to build India’s largest B2B financial services company that can serve as one-stop destination for small merchants. For BharatPe, merchants will always be at the core of everything we build.”