Stride Ventures on Wednesday said it has extended venture debt of Rs 50 crore to credit and payments-led fintech startup, Uni.
"The debt round from Stride Ventures is a vote of confidence that the market has in us and our business model," said Nitin Gupta, founder and chief executive officer, Uni, in a statement.
Uni provides credit-card based products for customers, enabling users to pay later through equated monthly installments. It launched the first product, Pay 1/3rd earlier in June last year, allowing customers to pay for goods in three equal installments over three months, with no extra charges.
The venture debt funding comes around six months after Uni raised a relatively large Series A investment round of $70 million led by US-based venture capital firm General Catalyst in December last year.
Eight Roads Ventures, Elevation Capital, Arbor Ventures, and existing investors Lightspeed and Accel also participated in the Series A round.
"With the Pay 1/3rd card we are addressing the need for flexibility while providing a customer experience that is cut above the rest," added Gupta, who was previously a co-founder of PayU India and has also worked with Bajaj Finserv and Ola Financial Services.
Venture debt investments in India have picked up pace over the past five years as it has become a popular instrument for startup founders to raise capital without diluting equity.
Earlier this year, Stride Ventures in its 'India Venture Debt Report 2022' said that startups in the fintech space are expected to lead the way in raising venture debt this year similar to the trend seen in 2021.
Stride Ventures is currently raising its second venture debt fund. In April, VCCircle reported that Stride Ventures is set to exceed its target corpus of Rs 1,000 crore for its second fund to raise around Rs 1,600 crore.
In a significant funding development in the fintech space recently, Slice, which also issues credit-based and payment cards, raised $50 million (Rs 388 crore) in a Series C funding round led by existing investor Tiger Global.