Payment technology startup Juspay announced on Wednesday that it has raised $60 Mn in a fresh funding round. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the round by investing almost $50 Mn in the round while rest of the $10 Mn were invested by the existing investors. The existing investors include VEF and Wellington Management.
This is the maiden funding round for the Bengaluru based startup in 2021. It had raised $21.6 Mn in series B round last year. The company refused to divulge the valuation it commanded in the latest round. However, unconfirmed reports claim that the startup claimed nearly $450 Mn valuation in the current round.
Notably, this is SoftBank’s first major investment in Indian payment company after one of its portfolio payment company Paytm went public last month. But the Paytm IPO, which was India’s largest IPO, turned out to be a dud affair. Critics and experts unanimously termed Paytm lackluster IPO debut as one of the biggest IPO flops in recent decades.
Juspay’s funding has also come months after PayU acquired Billdesk for $4.7 Bn, marking one of the biggest consolidation in India’s payment industry. But this consolidation is unlikely to have any adversarial impact on Juspay as the startup is more focused on mobile payment space.
Commenting about Softbank’s maiden investment in Juspay Vishal Gupta, Director, SoftBank Investment Advisers, said “Juspay is one of the most innovative deep tech companies in India’s fast growing digital payments market. It is solving the complex needs of an evolving fintech ecosystem. We believe in Juspay’s vision to simplify payments for billions of people globally and deliver higher revenue at lower cost for merchants.”
Juspay was founded in 2012 by Vimal Kumar. Currently, the company claims that it processes 300 Mn per month and is one of the leading mobile payment players in India.
