Accel leads $25 mn Series B funding in trade finance firm Drip Capital

Palo Alto- and Mumbai-based financial technology solutions provider Drip Capital has raised $25 million (Rs 172.4 crore at the current exchange rate) in Series B round of funding, led by Accel Partners. The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia India, California-based Wing VC. and US incubator Y Combinator.

GC1 Ventures and investment platform Trusted Insights are among the new investors in the round. 

Since inception in 2016, the startup has raised $45 million in equity and $55 million in debt, it said in a statement. 

With the fresh capital, the fintech platform plans to expand into new locations, namely Mexico and the UAE, and invest in the development of new product offerings. 

Dealing primarily in financing the export operations of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), Drip Capital uses digital platforms to facilitate services like bill discounting and invoice factoring. Through its software offerings like Portal and DripView, the startup provides working capital to exporters, furnishes analytics pertaining to shipments and automates processes like risk assessment and underwriting. Offering collateral-free loans to exporters, it services liabilities ranging from $100,000 to $2.5 million.

The company is developing an in-house blockchain platform for trade financing, Pushkar Mukewar, co-founder and managing director of Drip Capital, told TechCircle. "We are actively working on a blockchain-enabled solution for trade financing. Basically, we are developing proprietary technology so that every trade we finance would have a blockchain component ensuring that the digital contracts between the seller and buyer cannot be tampered," Mukewar said. 

Founded by Wharton alumni Mukewar and Neil Kothari in 2015, the company claims to have funded trade operations worth over $500 million and aims to fund $1 billion of trade originating from India by the next financial year.

In its last funding round, Drip Capital raised $15 million (around Rs 102 crore then) from Accel, Sequoia and Wing VC.

Registered in the US as Drip Capital Inc, the company had also raised an undisclosed amount of debt capital from Silicon Valley Bank and others. It had previously raised $5 million in seed funding from Y Combinator and Accel among others.