Mumbai-based digital payments company ItzCash Card Ltd has made an undisclosed equity investment in Bangalore-based expense management firm Finly.
ItzCash will use the funds to strengthen its play in the expense management vertical, which is estimated to be a $25 billion opportunity for corporates in India, the company said in a statement.
Founded by Veekshith Rai and Vivek AG in 2015, Finly—operated by Jouska Tech Pvt Ltd—has developed an expense management tool for businesses to enable them to get better insight into their expenses. The startup offers a web- and mobile-based platform, where it offers ItzCash prepaid cards for expense management and disbursement.
“The idea is to get ready for the next phase of financial services convergence. By replacing traditional tools for reporting expenses our new offering will provide finance teams with tools and data that will enable them to have real-time insights into their spends,†Naveen Surya, managing director of ItzCash and chairman of the Payments Council of India said in the press note.
In August last year, VCCircle reported that ItzCash was in talks with several mobile application firms to explore acquisitions, investments and joint ventures.
Established in 2006, ItzCash operates in three verticals—digital payments, remittance and corporate business. It offers prepaid cards, money transfer and wallet services to retail consumers and provides cash management services, an online payment gateway and gifting solutions to corporates.
The company is expecting to become EBIDTA positive in Q1 FY2016-17. It reported revenues of Rs 200 crore in FY2015-16 and aims to generate Rs 270 crore in the current financial year.
ItzCash has issued 110 million accounts to date and claims to process 50 crore transactions worth Rs 32 crore daily.
The firm, which is part of the Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group, counts Matrix Partners, Intel Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners as its investors. In July 2009, ItzCash raised $10.3 million in funding from Matrix Partners, Intel Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Other startups in the expense management space include Fyle Technologies, which raised $400,000 (Rs. 2.67 crore) earlier this month in a seed round led by early stage venture firm Pravega Ventures. Beenext, redBus co-founder Phanindra Sama, Zivame co-founder Richa Kar, and Qubole co-founder Joydeep Sen Sharma also participated in the round.
In November 2016, Gurgaon-based numberz.in raised $650,000 from investors Kae Capital and Khosla Impact.
In October 2015, Bangalore-based Happay raised $500,000 (Rs 3.1 crore) from seed-stage VC firm AngelPrime.
Note:- This article has been updated to correct the name of the company that operates Finly.
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