City-based payment gateway, Cashfree, on Monday said it has raised strategic funding from India’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), at a post-money valuation of $200 million.
The company will be utilise the funds to ramp up its payment infrastructure and invest in growth.
The latest fundraise comes less than a year after the company raised $35.3 million as part of its Series B funding round, led by growth stage financial services investor, Apis Partners.
The six-year-old startup provides full-stack payments solutions to businesses in India, allowing them to collect payments and make payouts via different digital payment instruments. Other services include payment collections, vendor and wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, and loyalty and reward offerings.
“We are excited about our partnership with the country’s trusted and leading lender SBI. The investment underscores Cashfree’s role towards building a payments ecosystem that enables fast and easy ways to collect payments and make payouts for growing businesses. The investment fits perfectly with our growth strategy as we continue to focus on customer experience and product innovation,” said Akash Sinha, co-founder and chief executive officer, Cashfree.
Cashfree claims to be powering 100,000 businesses and processes transactions worth $20 billion annually. Apart from its home market, the company also has businesses across eight other geographies – including the US, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates – leveraging its solutions.
In India, the company’s clientele includes Zomato, CRED, Nykaa, Delhivery, Acko, Shell, among others, which use Cashfree’s solution for ecommerce payment collections, vendor payments, and marketplace settlements.
Prior to this round, Cashfree has raised more than $40 million in equity funding from the likes of Apis Partners, Smilegate and Y Combinator.
In April this year, even business payment provider Razorpay raised $160 million as a part of its Series E funding, and almost tripled its valuation to $3 billion in six months.
This article was first published on livemint.com