Fintech startups top fundraising in April-September with $1.08 bn

Buoyed by the exponential rise in online financial transactions each year, Indian fintech companies are aggressively raising funds for expanding their network and capturing higher market share.  

Fintech startups dominated the fund raising during the first six months of the current financial year (April-September) with 56 companies raising $1.08 billion, almost one-third of the funds raised by all startups, data compiled by TechCircle show.

Some of the big ticket deals during the period include funds raised by online insurance aggregator Policybazaar, credit card points aggregator Cred, student loan provider MPower and OKCredit.  

India digital payments per capita increased 10 times in the last five years to 22.4 transactions a year, said a report released by the Reserve Bank of India in May. 

Across categories, 260 startups raised $3.9 billion during the six months ended September 30, 2019.

As many as 20 travel technology companies raised $742 million in the six-month period, the second highest in terms of funds raised.    

Major fundraisers in the sector in the $250 million range deal include Droom and Ola Electric. 

Among individual companies, logistics startup Blackbuck and scooter rental platform Bounce raised funds with maximum frequency  in three tranches. 

Blackbuck raised $210 million in three tranches from US-based venture capital firm Accel, Goldman Sachs and Creek Master Investors. Bounce raised $76 million from venture capital firm InnoVen Capital and Canada-based Qualcomm among the prominent investors.

US-based hedge fund Tiger Global Management funded at least 10 startups during the period with funds totalling to $367 million. Prominent names funded include Upstox, OkCredit, Wow! Momo and Ninjacart.

California-headquartered Accel Partners funded 11 companies with total funds invested at $191 million. Early-stage investor Indian Angel Network funded six startups while Mumbai Angel Network funded four startups.

M&A

The six months also saw over 25 acquisitions with total deal value at around $400 million, although financial details of several deals are not publicly available. 

Notable deals include US-based Ebix Inc’s $338 million acquisition of travel platform Yatra, Mahindra & Mahindra’s controlling shareholding  acquisition of cab aggregator Meru and Quickr India’s acquisition of used goods marketplace Zefo, among others.   

The period was also marked by US-based retail major Walmart’s $1.2 billion fund infusion into Flipkart 10 months after the acquisition of the Indian ecommerce platform.