Two senior directors at Cisco invest in MobiKwik

Amidst extending KYC completion deadline and launching instant insurance services, Mobikwik has picked up a small fund from a couple of high profile angel investors.

Two Senior Directors at the US-based networking hardware company Cisco have invested Rs 2.25 crore in the Gurugram-based company, as per the filings of the company with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, accessed by Entrackr (hat tip: paper.vc).

Gaurav Manglik, Senior Director of CloudCenter at Cisco (Palo Alto office)  has invested Rs 1.125 crore via 1,366 Series E3 CCCPS at a price of Rs 8,233.5 each.

Tianying Fu, another Senior Director at Cupertino centre of Cisco, has invested the same amount by purchasing 1,366 shares of the aforementioned category.

While Manglik invested in personal capacity, Tianying Yu poured in the money through The Fu Family Trust. Before becoming Sr. Directors at Cisco, both of them were executives at CliQr Technologies.

Manglik was the co-founder and CEO, whereas Fu was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

This small round comes after Mobikwik closing $3 million (about Rs 24 crore) in a bridge round from existing investors. Entrackr had exclusively reported the round led by Sequoia Capital and participated by Net1 UPES and GMO Venture Partner.

Over the past eight months, MobiKwik has been introducing several initiatives to encompass a full stack consumer fintech play.

Besides integrating UPI, MobiKwik introduced credit disbursal product - Boost by partnering NBFCs to grant loans of up to Rs 60,000 and acquired Clearfunds to foray into wealth management space.

Last month, it also added low-cost instant insurance services at prices as low as Rs 20.

While MobiKwik has never shared data about its UPI transactions and their cumulative value, it looks like UPI has never taken off for the Bajaj Finserv-backed firm. Performance of other initiatives is premature to be evaluated.

Moreover, MobiKwik had also faced a string of departures at top-level. Although it filled up the majority of functions, recently firm's Chief Strategy Officer Mrinal Sinha (also led the company as COO) moved from MobiKwik.

Last fiscal, MobiKwik had doubled its revenue to Rs 85.65 crore, whereas losses had increased by 55 per cent to Rs 202.35 crore.