MS Dhoni bats for bookkeeping app KhataBook

Bengaluru-based ADJ Utility Apps, which owns and operates accounting app Khatabook, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian cricketer MS Dhoni.

The startup will use the fresh funds to expand its product portfolio and double down on its technology capabilities, it said in a statement.

“Having grown up in small-town India, I saw friends and family struggle with outdated modes of doing business and tracking finances. Khatabook has had an outsized impact on the lives of India’s small merchants and retailers,” Dhoni said.

In addition to his investment, Dhoni will become Khatabook’s brand ambassador, the statement added.

In its last funding round in October 2019, Khatabook raised $25 million in an outsized Series A funding round from a slew of marquee investors including Sequoia Capital India, Tencent Holdings, GGV Capital, DST Global, RTP Ventures and Y Combinator.

The Series A round also saw participation of 20 angel investors including PayU co-founder Amrish Rau, former Facebook executive Anand Chandrasekharan, SoftBank executive Deep Nishar, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and Cred founder Kunal Shah.

Founded in December 2018 by IIT Bombay alumni Ravish Naresh, Jaideep Poonia, Dhanesh Kumar and Ashish Sonone, Khatabook is a mobile app that enables small and medium enterprises to record and track business transactions. Prior to founding Khatabook, Naresh launched real estate platform Housing.com, while Poonia and Kumar were founders of automation platform Knit.

Khatabook was one of the 17 startups selected as part of the maiden cohort of Sequoia Capital India’s accelerator programme Surge.

It serves more than 500 types of businesses ranging from mobile recharge shops, garment dealers to jewellers in over 5,000 cities across the country.

Khatabook claims to have onboarded over 2 crore registered merchants on its app and aims to add another 2 crore merchants over the next 12 months.

The platform supports 11 languages and has recorded cash transactions worth over Rs. 3.7 lakh crore in the last one year, the company claims.

A number of fintech startups, including Vyapar and OkCredit, provide similar accounting automation platforms for SMEs. 

OkCredit raised $67 million in a Series B funding round from Tiger Global Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners while Vyapar raised a funding round from IndiaMart Intermesh and Axilor Ventures, both in September last year.

MS Dhoni is an investor in sports-technology firm Run Adam and pre-owned car platform Cars24. He is a brand ambassador to Dream11 and RedBus

He is also a co-owner of football club Chennaiyin FC that plays in the Indian Super League.