Khatabook Inc., which operates an eponymous small- and medium-enterprise-focussed financial technology firm, has raised $60 million (approximately Rs 454.17 crore at current exchange rates) in its Series B funding round.
The round has been led by B Capital, which was set up by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Khatabook said in a statement.
Other participants in this exercise include RTP Global, Hummingbird Ventures, Falcon Edge Capital, Rohit Bahl, Rocketship.vc, and Unilever Ventures. Existing backers such as Sequoia India, Partners of DST Global, Tencent and GGV Capital also contributed to the round.
Angel investors such as Kevin Weil, Alexander Will, Kunal Shah, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal also took part in this exercise.
The Bengaluru-based startup will use the funds to ramp up its product offering for its core merchant base, with a view on building solutions around financial services and a merchant-focussed distribution platform.
Khatabook was set up by Ravish Naresh, Dhanesh Kumar, Jaideep Poonia and Ashish Sonone in December 2018. Its platform allows small- and medium-sized merchants to record and track business transactions.
The announcement of the Series B investment comes just two months after the company raised an undisclosed sum from former Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. As part of the investment, Dhoni also agreed to come on as Khatabook’s brand ambassador.
“Khatabook is playing an important role in the digitization of MSMEs – a sector that forms the backbone of our economy - helping to increase their incomes and making them more efficient and competitive,” Naresh said.
The company’s services are currently being used by over eight million merchants across the country, he said.
Separately, B Capital general partner and Asia co-head Kabir Narang said the multinational investment firm was confident of its bet on Khatabook because of its focus on solving the issues faced by small and medium enterprises.
At the time of Dhoni’s investment, the company said it was planning to onboard at least two crore more merchants to its platform over the next year.
In October last year, Khatabook raised $25 million (around Rs 176.94 crore) in its Series A funding round. Investors that took part in that round included Tencent, the US-based GGV, Sequoia India, Y Combinator, RTP Ventures and Partners of DST Global.
Other companies that are present in the transaction recording space include OkCredit, which in September last year raised $67 million (around Rs 476.2 crore) in its Series B round led by Lightspeed and Tiger Global. That June, OkCredit raised $15.5 million (around Rs 107.73 crore) in a Series A funding round, which was also led by Tiger Global.
