Homegrown fintech firm BharatPe makes its way into the unicorn club by raising $ 370 million in a Series E funding round led by Tiger Global. The Sequoia-backed firm raised the amount in a primary as well as a secondary mix and raised a post-money valuation of $ 2.85 billion.

The secondary raise translates to raising $ 20 million and this was aimed at creating a liquidity event for employees and angel investors associated with the company. Additionally, this happens to be a third liquidity event for the company’s employees with vested options.

The firm’s assessments seem to be growing threefold to $ 2.85 billion in six months and to top it off, the firm had already procured $ 108 million earlier this year at an appraisal of $ 900 million.

The current funding comes after the PMC’s bank takeover which was done in a joint venture by BharatPe as well as Centrum Group, approved by the Reserve Bank of India. At the time, the said joint venture was aimed at procuring a capital of Rs. 1,800 crore into its merger with the proposed bank. Also, the firm proclaimed that this deal was aimed at establishing a tech platform for all fintech firms.

However, days before PMC bank’s move, BharatPe made its first acquisition in Payback India at 100 percent of the multi-loyalty program from American Inc., including ICICI Investments Strategic Fund. Yet the exact amount is unclear as it's kept under wraps.

During this funding round, the firm witnessed Tiger Global adding $ 100 million, soon followed by Dragoneer and Steadfast both adding $ 25 million.

It also witnessed funds dropped by other investors such as Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, Coatue Management, Amplo and Ribbit Capital together investing $ 200 million.

Suhail Sameer, who was previously the group president, has been promoted to CEO and will be in charge of the company's monetization, lending, and recent banking ventures.
He will also join the board of directors of BharatPe.

Ashneer Grover, a co-founder of BharatPe, will take over as managing director of the company, where he will continue to lead the company's strategy, technology, and product activities, as well as manage capital financing.

Merchant payments, finance, and financial services solutions to merchant partners are among BharatPe's core business areas.

It currently has a presence in more than 140 cities and wants to expand to 300 in the next two years. It also intends to increase the number of point-of-sale devices deployed from 100,000 to 400,000 in the next two fiscal years.

It intends to increase its entire financing to $3 billion by March 2023, with a $1 billion outstanding loan book.

To support this credit expansion, the company plans to raise $700 million in debt capital over the next two years.

The BharatPe platform currently processes about $10 billion in yearly payment value, with the business aiming to reach $30 billion by 2023.

By the end of fiscal year 2023, BharatPe hopes to double its merchant partners to 14 million.