OfBusiness is set to raise up to $150 million (Rs 1093 crore) from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in a funding round that will catapult the small and medium enterprise (SME) financing platform to the unicorn club of startups, a person familiar with the development told VCCircle.
The fund, backed by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp, will lead the round at a valuation of $1.3 billion, the person cited above said.
SoftBank is making a primary fund infusion into the company.
An email sent to OfBusiness did not elicit an immediate response.
SoftBank declined to comment.
The development comes just a month after the New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital led an investment of $110 million (Rs 817 crore) in OfBusiness.
India has churned out unicorns at a record pace this year despite the raging pandemic.
OfBusiness is the fifteenth unicorn (or startups valued at $1bn) to emerge this year.
Fintech firm Cred, epharmacy Pharmeasy, social networking platform ShareChat, marketplace for construction materials Infra.Market, industrial goods marketplace Moglix and messaging app Gupshup were among other startups that joined the elite club of unicorns this year.
OfBusiness, which is operated by OFB Tech Pvt Ltd, was founded in 2015 by Asish Mohapatra, Bhuvan Gupta, Ruchi Kalra, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Nitin Jain, Chandranshu and Biswajit Mishra.
The Bengaluru-based firm offers a single-window platform to provide secured and unsecured credit to SMEs for procuring raw material through its NBFC Oxyzo Financial Services.
The company raised its Series A funding of $5 million (Rs 34.2 crore) in early 2016 from Matrix Partners and some angel investors. In December 2016, it secured $11.1 million (Rs 75 crore) in a Series B round from Zodius Technology Opportunities Fund and existing investors.
In 2017, multi-stage investment firm Norwest Venture Partners invested around Rs 221 crore ($31 million then) in the Series D round. It was Norwest’s single-biggest investment in an Indian startup then.
In October 2017, OfBusiness also raised Rs 25 crore in debt funding from Kotak Mahindra Bank.
OfBusiness is the latest investment for SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 in India. Late last month, the fund led a $250 million equity funding round in banking technology startup Zeta. This had propelled the Bhavin Turakhia led startup’s valuation to $1.45 billion. Other Indian bets from the fund include social commerce platform Meesho, eyewear brand Lenskart and edtech firm Unacademy.
