In one of the largest Series A round of funding in Indian Startup Ecosystem, Bangalore-based BharatPe is in the final stages of raising nearly $17 million (about Rs 120 crore) from investors led by Sequoia Capital India, valuing
the payments startup at $60-65 million, reported Economic Times.
Founded in April 2018, by former CFO of Grofers, Ashneer Grover (IIT Delhi 2004), and Shashvat Nakrani, BhratPe is a QR code-based payment app building the largest offline merchant network in India by making mobile payments acceptance free and ubiquitous.
BharatPe empower the merchants to accept UPI payments for ‘FREE’ through the BharatPe QR. Merchants can sign up instantly and start receiving the funds immediately in their bank account. BharatPe makes payment acceptance simple by offering merchants a single interface for all UPI apps such as PayTM, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM, Mobikwik, Freecharge, True Caller and 100 other UPI apps.
"BharatPe is a fin-tech company and not a re-seller. We are not an aggregator or payment gateway in the traditional sense. BharatPe works closely with our partner banks to develop custom APIs to enable an extremely simple product for the merchants. Our QR technology and deep integration at the bank end is our secret sauce," says the company website.
In February last year, ICICI Bank acquired a minority stake in payment startup, Tapits Technologies, a Mumbai-based early stage startup that helps merchants accept digital payments through Aadhaar biometrics.
In May last year, another new payment startup, ToneTag, had raised $8-10 million from a clutch of marquee, strategic investors led by Amazon Inc. and Mastercard,. ToneTag uses encrypted sound waves to make offline, proximity-based contact-less payments on any device.
In June, Chennai-based Hip Bar raised Rs 27 crore from alcoholic beverages company, United Spirits Ltd (USL). Hip Bar claims to be India's first drinks delivery app with an RBI-approved mobile wallet that enables customers browse adult beverages, order them and have them home-delivered.