PayMate India Pvt. Ltd, a business-to-business (B2B) digital payments firm, has raised an undisclosed sum of money in its Series D funding round from Recruit Strategic Partners, the VC arm of Japan’s Recruit Co. Ltd and the US-based financial firm Visa.
Other investors include Brand Capital, the strategic investment arm of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (the Times Group) and Mayfair 101, an Australia-based investment and corporate advisory group, the company said in a statement.
Mumbai-based PayMate has previously partnered with Visa for markets including India, Central Europe, West Asia and Africa.
PayMate’s founder and chief executive officer Ajay Adiseshann said the firm had raised a “significant portion of the $25 million (approximately Rs 172.57 crore at current exchange rates) round”, and that it is expected to complete it within the next 60 days, according to media report.
Adiseshann said the investment in the PayMate was validation of its business model and growth potential. The partnership with Visa would also help it scale faster by leveraging the US-based multinational company’s network, he added.
Separately, TR Ramachandran, country manager for India and South Asia, Visa group, said PayMate’s platform was making it possible for businesses to replace antiquated ways of managing their working capital with digital solutions.
Founded in 2006 by Adiseshann, PayMate says its cloud-based platform allows enterprise and small and medium enterprises to automate and digitise their procurement-to-payment cycle. Its platform’s features include services such as vendor management, vendor payments, customer payments and supply chain financing options, among others.
The company says its services are used by over 35,000 businesses and processes approximately $5 billion in payments annually.
Lightbox Ventures and Mayfield Fund have earlier invested in the firm.
Investors
Recruit Strategic Partners is the private equity arm and investment subsidiary of Japan-based diversified consumer and business services provider Recruit Holdings Co Ltd. The fund was formed in 2015.
In April last year, Recruit Group invested in Rubique, a Mumbai-based online marketplace for financial products.
The investment in PayMate is the latest Indian bet by Visa, which in February invested over $75 million (around Rs 537 crore then) in online payment solutions firm BillDesk.
Brand Capital is the ad-for-equity investment arm of the Times Group. In June, it agreed to invest up to $6.5 million (around Rs 45.32 crore) in the Singapore-based human resources technology startup Indorse. Some of the other companies it has backed include home diagnostics services provider 5th Vital and ed-tech startup Toppr Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
