BharatPe raises ₹200 crore in debt to build a loan book of $1 billion by March 2023

• IIFL Wealth & Asset Management and Northern Arc Capital contributed ₹100 crore each for this round.
• The company has raised ₹500 crore of debt in 2021 and plans to raise over ₹1,800 crore by March 2022.
• Earlier this month, the company raised $370 million at a valuation of $2.85 billion.

Merchant-focused payments startup BharatPe has raised ₹200 crore ($28 million) in debt to build a loan book of $1 billion by March 2023. Investment firms IIFL Wealth & Asset Management and Northern Arc Capital both contributed ₹100 crore each for this round.

BharatPe has raised ₹500 crore ($70 million) in debt across seven rounds in 2021 as it plans to aggressively build its loan book. The company plans to raise an additional debt of $250 million (around ₹1,859 crore) by the end of March 2022.

For any lending business, debt funding is used to disburse loans as there is no equity involved.

Founded only three years ago by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani, BharatPe is one of the youngest startups to enter the unicorn club. A unicorn — in startup parlance — is a company valued at or above $1 billion.

Earlier this month, BharatPe had raised $370 million in a Series E round led by Tiger Global, at a valuation of $2.85 billion. This represented an almost three-fold increase from the $900 million valuation accorded to the company after the $108 million Series D round raised in February 2021.

BharatPe is also looking to further expand its lending business as well. The company, in partnership with Centrum Finance, bagged a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India in June 2021, by acquiring PMC Bank.

“We have witnessed a surge in demand for merchant loans, with multi-fold growth over the last one year. With the festive season coming up soon, we are committed to scale our lending vertical aggressively and have set a target of 10x growth in lending by FY23,” Suhail Sameer, who recently replaced founder Ashneer Grover as the chief executive of BharatPe, said.

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