Capital Float and Naspers Ltd have called off their investment talks wherein the latter was planning to invest $200 million in the Fintech startup, according to Livemint report. Livemint claims that Sashank Rishyasringa, co-founder of Capital Float, has confirmed the news by an email.
Rishyasringa said that this was a routine investment discussion that failed to achieve fruition. He didn’t comment on whether Capital Float is still open to engage with Naspers for future fundraising.
Naspers has so far refused to comment on the news report.
So why did it the investment talks really collapsed.
Some of the existing investors of Capital Float were less enthusiastic about making an exit as they wanted to hold on to their stakes, sources privy to the matter claimed.
Investors felt that a prominent NBFC player like Capital Float holds lot of promising prospects for the future and want to keep it as a long term bet, sources added.
Investors may not be all that wrong about the Bengaluru based Fintech startup. Industry expert feel that after e-commerce the next revolution in India will be spearheaded by Fintech sector and market leaders like Capital Float will be at the forefront of this revolution.
The investment numbers furnished by business intelligence platform Tracxn also proves that investors are increasing their bet on Fintech sector every year. This year the sector has witnessed 66 rounds of investments that helped to amass $746 million, a data from Tracxn claimed. This compared to 204 deals in 2018 that helped to clock $1.5 billion and $2.1 billion in 2017.
Founded in 2013, Capital Float is one of the poster boys of India’s rapidly growing Fintech sector. It counts Amazon and Sequoia Capital among other high profile investors. The company has so far raised $190 Mn in capital.
Naspers $200 Mn investment in Capital Float would have been the biggest investment in India’s Fintech sector. This would have also been South African based internet giant’s second investment in India’s Fintech space, after investing in PaySense. The Cape Town headquartered company counts unicorns like Swiggy and Byju’s among its rapidly increasing Indian portfolio.
