Bharatpe garners ₹200 crore in debt
BENGALURU: New Delhi-based fintech company Resilient Innovations Pvt. Ltd, which runs the merchant payments platform Bharatpe, said it has raised ₹200 crore ($27 million) in its seventh round of debt financing from IIFL Wealth and Northern Arc Capital.
The company said it plans to raise a total of $250 million (about ₹1,859 crore) in debt by the end of March next. So far this fiscal, Bharatpe has raised ₹500 crore ($70 million) in debt.
“We have witnessed a surge in demand for merchant loans, with multifold growth over the last one year. With the festive season coming up soon, we are committed to scaling our lending vertical aggressively and have set a target of 10x growth in lending by 2022-23,” said Suhail Sameer, chief executive at Bharatpe in a statement.
He said the company is aiming to raise $700 million in debt over the next two years.
The firm plans to partner with domestic and international investors to facilitate credit growth.
Bharatpe said it will build a loan book of $1 billion by March 2023 supported by its expansion to new cities. Earlier this year, Bharatpe raised ₹300 crore from venture debt funds (Alteria Capital, Innoven Capital, and Trifecta Capital), banks (ICICI Bank, Axis Bank) and non-bank lender Northern Arc Capital.
Bharatpe has so far disbursed over $300 million in unsecured loans to over 200,000 merchant partners and the company has an outstanding loan book of $100 million, it said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Bharatpe announced its $370 million Series E funding round led by Tiger Global, through which it attained unicorn status.
In June, it received an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)TO establish a small finance bank with Centrum Financial Services.
In the same month, the company acquired loyalty programme company PAYBACK India.
Founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018, the fintech firm operates UPI QR code-based payment acceptance for small and medium businesses.
It also runs Bharatswipe, a payment acceptance terminal.