It's Open — India now has a century of unicorns

• Open raises $50 million in its Series D round from IIFL, Temasek and others.
• Open offers business banking, payments and expense management services to SMEs across India.
• The company claims to have over 2.3 million SMEs, which allows it to process transactions over $30 billion annually.

Neobank Open on Monday announced that it is the 100th Indian startup to have entered the unicorn category, which represents companies valued over a billion dollars.

While Open claims to be the 100th unicorn, a Venture Intelligence report noted that it is the 96th company to enter the unicorn club.

The development comes as Open raised $50 million in its Series D round. IIFL — along with existing investors Temasek, Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital — participated in the round, Open said in a press release.

Founded by Anish Achuthan, Ajeesh Achuthan, Mabel Chacko, and Deena Jacob in 2017, Open offers business banking, payments and expense management services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across India. The company claims to have over 2.3 million SMEs, which allows it to process transactions over $30 billion annually.

Open further claims to add over 100,000 SMEs to its clientele every month, making it the fastest-growing SME-focused neobanking platform globally. The startup competes against the likes of IPO-bound Navi, Nubank, CredAvenue and Oxyzo to name a few.

The five-year-old company is now looking to launch three new products — revenue-based financing platform Open Flo, early settlement offering Open Settl and working capital lending company Open Capital. The company plans to disburse loans worth $1 billion in the next 12 months through its Open Capital offering.

“We see a lot of synergies with IIFL especially on leveraging the lending book, as we are getting ready to launch innovative products like revenue-based financing, early settlement, working capital loan and business credit cards to SMEs on our platform,” Anish Achuthan, cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Open, said in a press note.

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