BankBazaar.com has raised a bridge round of ₹45 crore in financing from a new investor WSV ― a joint venture fund of Walden International and Korean company SKTA, along with existing investors including Amazon, Sequoia India, Experian and Eight Roads.
The latest capital-raise is part of BankBazaar’s Series D1 equity financing round. The proceeds are earmarked for accelerating the delivery of contactless personal finance products and business expansion in India. The company raised Series D funding of $30 million from Experian in October 2017.
“BankBazaar has spent the last decade in building world-class infrastructure to enable Indians access financial products online from leading lenders across the country. In the post-Covid-19 world, the demand for contactless finance is going to grow exponentially, and this round of funding will help us accelerate our plans to implement contactless access to credit. This round of funding reiterates our investors’ trust in our vision of contactless finance as the future of personal finance and in our ability to make it a reality,” said Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar.
Led by strong growth in customer base and reduction in costs, BankBazaar was trending to achieve operational month-on-month profitability in March 2020 when the lockdown was announced. Between October 2019 and February 2020, BankBazaar saw a 90 per cent increase in monthly organic traffic and its registered customer base rose to over 40 million. The company saw a 53 per cent increase in monthly revenue and a 15 per cent reduction in costs during the same period.
“BankBazaar has always been focused on achieving EBITDA profitability, and going forward, profitability continues to be our top priority. We look forward to accelerating contactless credit from leading financiers and with this round have enough capital to get soon to breakeven and beyond,” said Shetty.
In a statement, Andrew Kau, General Partner with WSV, said, “BankBazaar is creating the ‘Credit Karma’ of India with leading-edge technology, a stellar team, and the support of an incredible set of strategic investors. We can’t wait to see how they help revolutionise the Indian financial services sector.”
BankBazaar is a neutral online marketplace that gives instant customised offers on loans and credit cards. It also provides customers free consumer credit score on its portal. Over 50 of India’s leading financial institutions have chosen to integrate themselves with the platform. Including this recent round, BankBazaar has so far raised $116 million in funding.
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