Bengaluru-based Instamojo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs an on-demand payments and e-commerce platform for small businesses, has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series B round from Japanese payments firm AnyPay.
This was AnyPay’s debut investment in India.
The company said it will use the new capital to expand its suite of offerings and introduce e-commerce-enabling services, such as cataloguing, logistics, shipping and GST compliance assistance.
Besides, it will also leverage big data and introduce financial services, such as lending via third-party providers, as well as expand its leadership team to meet these goals.
“We are extremely excited about the possibilities and the future of the Indian SME market, and hold in great confidence that Instamojo will be able to capture that often underserved market space. For the first time, many Indian small businesses will be able to go digital, including themselves into the mainstream financial system,†said Shinji Kimura, CEO, AnyPay.
Founded in 2012 by Sampad Swain, Aditya Sengupta, Akash Gehani and Harshad Sharma, Instamojo claims to have helped over 300,000 SMEs to build, manage and grow their businesses online. It also also claims to have acquired 10% of digitally-active SMEs in India and controls 30% of their annual turnover.
The company aims to extend its wallet share to 70% by 2019 and grow its merchant base by 400% in 2018. Instamojo had turned EBITDA positive in July 2017 and witnessed 10-15% month-on-month growth.
“With our vertical approach, we aim to cater to the end-to-end requirements of merchants and become an integral part of their growth story. We look forward to leveraging AnyPay’s expertise to further drive the adoption of online payments and e-commerce among SMEs,†said Instamojo CEO Swain.
The company had earlier raised over $5 million from Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and 500Startups, besides angel investors such as Rajan Anandan.
Recent fundings
The fintech segment has garnered interest of many investors of late. A recent VCCircle analysis had showed that since the beginning of the year, at least 25 fin-tech startups have raised venture funding.
In March, Mumbai-based payment services startup Airpay had raised Rs 24 crore ($3.6 million) as part of a Series A round led by Kalaari Capital and existing investors Rakesh and Rajesh Jhunjhunwala.
In January, online payments gateway BillDesk had acquired a financial technology product from a Kochi-based company to increase its capabilities in the mobile commerce segment.