Exclusive: ItzCash in talks with several fintech mobile companies for potential investment

Mumbai-based digital payments facilitator ItzCash is in talks with several mobile application firms for making a strategic investment, said a top company executive.

The company, which would turn profitable in FY2016-17, is looking for firms specialising in fintech mobile applications which can be scaled with further investments. It is open to explore options including acquisition, strategic investment and joint ventures, said ItzCash managing director Naveen Surya.

At present, the company operates in three verticals—digital payments, remittance and corporate business. It offers prepaid card, money transfer and wallet to retails consumers. It works with corporates providing cash management services, online payment gateway and gifting solutions.

Bhavik Vasa, chief growth officer, said the company is looking to enter the payment gateway aggregator space and would be open to inorganic opportunities in this space as well. "We would fund the investments through cash accruals," he said.

The Essel Group company, established in 2006, is backed by Matrix Partners, Lightspeed Venture and Intel Capital.

Bharat Bill Payments Operating Unit

In July, the company received an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Bharat Bill Payments Operating Unit (BBPOU), which has been proposed as an integrated system that will provide anytime anywhere payment options to customers by pulling all bills and payment options onto a single platform.

Betting big on the BBPOU, the company is expecting a 40-50% growth in its top-line in the next three years. Recently, the firm has formed partnerships such as the one with hotel aggregator OYO and aims to double its booking volume to Rs 400 crore by FY2017-18. It recently partnered with online entertainment ticketing provider BookMyShow and live TV platform DittoTV. It expects revenues from the entertainment segment to grow about 40% year on year and is aiming to grow its booking volume to over Rs 5,000 crore by FY2017-18 from Rs 3,000 crore currently.

It has presence across diverse sectors, including media and entertainment, tourism, packaging, publishing and broadcasting and financial services.

Profitability

The company is expecting to become EBIDTA positive in Q1 FY2016-17. It reported revenues of Rs 200 crore in FY2015-16 and targets to generate Rs 270 crore in the current financial year. The company charges a fee of 1.5% to 2% on a per transaction basis.

ItzCash has issued 110 million accounts to date. It caters to 35 million consumers annually and has over 75,000 franchisees in more than 3000 cities and towns. It processes 50 crore transactions worth Rs 32 crore daily.

The company, which has crossed Rs 50,000 crore worth of cumulative gross payment volume for bill payments to date, expects to cross Rs 15,000 crore of gross payments across 40 million customers in FY2016-17.

The firm raised $10.3 million in funding from Matrix Partners, Intel Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners in July 2009. Previously, it netted $9.3 million in funding from Intel Capital and Matrix Partners in 2007.

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