Mswipe to get $32-mn cheque from Epiq Capital, Facebook co-founder’s VC firm

Mumbai-based mobile point-of-sale services (mPoS) startup Mswipe Technologies Pvt. Ltd is raising $31.47 million (Rs 219 crore at current exchange rates) in a fresh funding round from its existing investors, its filings with the Registrar of Companies show.

The round will be co-led by tech investment firm Epiq Capital and venture capital firm B Capital, managed by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Epiq Capital and B Capital will invest Rs 70 crore ($10 million) each, while other existing investors DSG Consumer Partners and Falcon Edge India are putting in the rest, the filings stated.

Though the company may have received the entire sum, regulatory filings have only accounted for B Capital’s contribution. According to TechCircle estimates, the entire investment will value the company at $450-455 million.

This represents a more than two-fold jump in valuation in Mswipe’s last known funding round where it was valued at a little over $200 million, according to TechCircle estimates.

Epiq Capital invested an undisclosed sum in Mswipe in August 2018, several media report and data available on VCCEdge, the research platform of News Corp VCCircle, showed.

E-mail queries sent to Manish Patel, founder and chief executive of Mswipe, did not elicit a response at the time of filing this report.

Mswipe

The company was founded in March 2011 by Patel, who has a degree in medicine from Mumbai University. He earlier co-founded Milestone Merchandise, an alcohol-beverages distribution company.

Mswipe offers point-of-sale solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses, enabling plastic card payments via mobile phones. It also provides a card reader that can be attached to any mobile handset with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The card reader converts the mobile phone into a card acceptance device.

Besides card payments, the company also enables merchants to accept digital payments from platforms like UPI, Google Pay, PhonePe, Bharat QR, and BHIM.

In May 2017, Mswipe acquired the offline merchant PoS division of digital payments firm PayU India as part of its offline push.

In June 2017, the company had raised Rs 200 crore ($31 million then) from Ratan Tata-led UC-RNT Fund, Matrix Partners and existing investors Falcon Edge Capital and DSG Consumer Partners.

Axis Bank also sold its entire 8% stake in Mswipe around that time for Rs 80.94 crore ($12.5 million).

Deals in the space

In the fintech segment, digital payments attracted considerable investor interest particularly in 2015-16. But funding activity in recent times has shifted to other fintech areas like digital lending and insurance technology.

In January this year, LoanTap Financial Technologies, which offers loans and overdraft products to salaried professionals, secured $8 million in a round led by new investor 3one4 Capital.

Around the same time, Mumbai-based peer-to-peer lending platform LiquiLoans raised funding from existing investor Matrix Partners India and a number of other individual investors.

In December last year, digital payments firm One MobiKwik Systems Pvt. Ltd, which runs wallet firm MobiKwik, raised around Rs 24 crore ($3.38 million then) in a fresh round of funding led by existing investor Sequoia Capital India.

In August last year, billionaire Warren Buffett-led multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway picked up a stake in One97 Communications Ltd, the parent company of digital payments firm Paytm.