Walden, Amazon infuse more funds into loan aggregation platform BankBazaar

Chennai-based A&A Dukaan Financial Services, which owns loan aggregation platform BankBazaar, has raised a total of $3.8 million (Rs 29 crore) from a host of investors including Silicon Valley-based VC firm Walden International India and ecommerce firm Amazon.

Walden invested Rs 7.1 crore via Walden SKT Venture Fund and Amazon put in Rs 5.6 crore through its foreign portfolio investment arm Amazon.com NV Investments Holdings, regulatory filings showed.  Sequoia Capital has participated in the latest tranche of this growth round with a Rs 2.6 crore infusion through one of its funds called SCI Growth Investments II.  Fidelity International-backed venture entity Eight Roads contributed Rs 1.5 crore while Netherland based GUS Holdings invested Rs 2.2 crore.

The company’s founders Adhil Shetty and Arjun Shetty invested Rs 2.6 crore and 3.2 crore each while chief delivery officer Iype Isac put in Rs1.4 crore. Its chief technology Murari Sridharan, chief financial officer Ramesh Srinivasan, head of credit policy and process transformation Navaneetha Krishnan, and chief human resources officer also participated in the round.

BankBazaar had raised $2.2 million last month as part of this ongoing round, from returning investors including Dublin headquartered credit information provider Experian, Eight Roads and Sequoia Capital.

Post the transaction, Sequoia owns 20%, Amazon 16.42%, and Walden 15.32% stakes in the company.

The company is planning to use the funds from the round for its working capital requirements.

BankBazaar’s last reported funding round was in 2017 when the company raised $29.5 million in a growth round from Experian. From its inception in 2008 until February this year, BankBazaar has raised $110 million, the company had said in a statement earlier. 

Founded by Adhil Shetty, Arjun Shetty and Rati Shetty, BankBazaar is an online marketplace that provides instant customised rate quotes on loans and insurance products. As of February this year, the company claimed that over 50 financial institutions have chosen to integrate themselves with the platform. 

BankBazaar expects to achieve operational profitability in this month, led by strong growth in customer base and reduction in costs. Between October last year and January this year, the company saw a 100% increase in organic traffic due to which its registered customer base rose to over 40 million, the company said.

It saw a 46% increase in monthly revenue and a 17% reduction in costs during the same period, the company said in a recently released statement. 

In FY19, the company’s net losses widened to Rs 169 crore from Rs 130 crore in the previous year on account of a one-time loss of Rs 139 crore due to impairment of certain receivables. Its revenues increased to Rs 109 crore in FY19 from Rs 97 crore a year ago.