MobiKwik to raise $150 million in funds to compete against Paytm

Ever since Demonetization, digital payment startups have seen a huge growth with Paytm recently raising $1.4 billion from SoftBank. The next in line to become a fintech unicorn company seems to be MobiKwik.

Co founder of MobiKwik Upasana Tapu in an interview with TechCrunch confirmed they were looking at raising $150 million from various investors in the next couple of months. With Paytm concentrating on its recently launched Paytm Banks and Paytm Mall, Taku is confident that they can even the playing field. This latest investment round will raise the valuation of MobiKwiki to $1 billion making them the second fintech company in India to join the list of unicorn companies.

Mobikwik was founded in the year 2009 and till date have managed to raise $126.85 million in 6 investment rounds. Speaking to Reuter’s co founder and Chief Executive Bipin Preet Singh said they expect MobiKwik to break even by mid 2018.

PM Narendra Modi’s decision to ban all Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes came as a boon to all digital payment platforms. According to Upasana Taku, their registered user base increased from 25 million to 55 million and their merchant bank increased to 1.5 million.

Neither Upasana Taku nor Bipin Singh were ready to reveal the names of their potential investors saying they included one major strategic investor and various other financial institutions. They did reveal that the capital from this investment will be used to grow user and merchant base and expand their current number of offices to more than 20.