Online financial services platform BankBazaar.com is exploring the possibility of a strategic tie-up with a few potential investors to strengthen its India business and enter a few other countries, a top company executive told VCCircle.
BankBazaar, operated by Chennai-based A & A Dukaan Financial Services Pvt Ltd, has already set up a subsidiary in Singapore with an investment of about $1 million. It is now looking to invest about the same amount in other growth markets such as Malaysia, the Philippines and the UAE in the current financial year, said co-founder and chief executive Adhil Shetty.
The strategic investors would help the company acquire capabilities in areas such as data mining and customer lifecycle management, Shetty said. He clarified that the company doesn’t require any funding as of now as it had raised $80 million in multiple rounds earlier. The talks are part of the firm’s vision of providing paperless e-KYC approvals for the financial services requirements of customers, he added.
In India, BankBazaar has partnered with 75 financial institutes and has diversified to offer 12 financial products including insurance and mutual funds, besides the banking products it initially began with. At present, the company gets about 17 million monthly visitors, which rose to 45 million in the last quarter of the financial year ended 31 March 2017.
Shetty added the company has an asset-light model with major operating costs going towards human resources and customer acquisition. It has already achieved positive unit economics on operations and is looking to be EBITDA positive by March 2018.
In February 2016, the company appointed Aman Narain as the chief executive for international markets and in March 2016, it hired former Microsoft executive Murari Sridharan as the chief technology officer.
In July 2015, Bankbazaar.com raised Rs 375 crore ($59.1 million) in Series C funding from e-commerce giant Amazon, Fidelity Growth Partners, Mousse Partners as well as Sequoia Capital and Walden International.
Established in 2008 by brothers Adhil and Arjun Shetty and Rati Rajkumar, the financial services firm provides instant customised rate quotes on loans, credit cards and insurance products. The company reported revenues of Rs 71 crore for the financial year ended 31 March 2016, data from VCCEdge, the research platform of News Corp VCCircle, show.