Fintech startup BharatPe has raised Rs 139 crore debt from Alteria Capital and ICICI Bank. The firm plans to use the funds raised to strengthen its business.
Ashneer Grover, co-founder and CEO, BharatPe, said to PTI, “Rs 90 crore in debt came from Alteria Capital, while the remaining Rs 49 crore was from ICICI Bank.”
He further added, “We have raised funds from ICICI Bank at a competitive interest rate of less than 9 per cent. We are aggressively building our lending vertical and our loan book is currently at Rs 400 crore. With this infusion, we can double down on our efforts and we expect the loan book to grow to Rs 700-750 crore by the end of March 2021.”
“The latest tranche of debt raised will help further build the lending business and enable credit for millions of businesses, across the length and breadth of India,” said Grover.
Alteria Capital is the India’s venture debt fund focused on innovative startups backed by VC sponsors. Venture debt is an alternative form of financing for startups which helps augment equity capital. It claims to enable founders to reduce dilution and improve their ownership as it is predominantly in the form of debt with a small equity kicker.
BharatPe was co-founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018, aiming to make financial inclusion a reality for Indian merchants.
BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code, first ZERO MDR payment acceptance service, and first UPI payment backed merchant cash advance service.
In 2020, post-Covid, BharatPe also launched India’s only ZERO MDR card acceptance terminals – BharatSwipe. Currently serving over 50 lakh merchants across 35 cities, the company has grown business 30x in 2019 and a provider UPI offline transactions, having processed 5 crore+ UPI transactions a month (annualized TPV of US$ 4+ Bn).
The company has already facilitated disbursement of over Rs. 400 crores to its merchants since launch. BharatPe has raised US$ 142.5 million till date. The company’s list of marquee investors includes Beenext, Sequoia, SteadView Capital, Ribbit Capital, Coatue Management LLC, Insight Partners, and Amplo.
Arya has been a part of the Content & Research Team at Hrnxt.com. She is a keen observer of economic developments, emerging businesses, people in business and keeps a tab on latest happenings in the business environment.