Exclusive: Matrix, Sequoia and SoftBank’s partner investing $25 Mn in Jitendra Gupta’s Jupiter

Successful serial entrepreneurs are having a ball in India as investors don’t bat an eyelid before writing unheard sums for their ventures in seed rounds. For instance, Kunal Shah surprised all by scoring a $30 million worth seed round much before readying his second startup Cred while Ashish Kashyap closed the same amount for his brainchild - INDWealth.

The trend of raising big rounds by the second term founders continues with former PayU co-founder Jitendra Gupta is raising $25 million for his second startup - Jupiter.

According to four Entrackr sources, Jupiter is in the last leg to announce a seed round led by Sequoia Capital and Matrix Venture Partners. “The two venture capitalists have finalized their respective investments of around  $8-10 million each in the yet to be launched venture. Rest is coming from over a dozen individual investors,” said two of the four sources aware of details of the deal.

Sources reveal that Jupiter will be a digital bank with a model similar to Revolut, N26 and local digital banking startup NiYO. Jupiter, the brainchild of Gupta and Vishnu Jerome, would offer digital banking solution with features like fund transfer, insurance amongst other products and services.

For the unaware, Revolut is a digital banking alternative that includes a prepaid debit card, currency exchange, and peer-to-peer payments.

“Managing partner of SoftBank Munish Varma also investing in Jupiter’s seed round. Many bluechip angels including Kunal Shah, Amrish Rau, Sriharsha Majety, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal also invested in the company’s first financing round,” added one of the aforementioned sources.

As per sources, Beenext is also joining the round with a $5 million cheque. “The contours of the transaction have been finalised and will be announced in the next couple of weeks,” outlined sources.

Gupta had quit PayU after three years stint at Naspers-owned company. Gupta, Rau and Satyen Kothari had sold out their payment processing firm Citrus to South African internet and media group in September 2016. 

Jerome has been a founding partner at legal consulting firm Jerome Merchant + Partners. He had over 15 years of experience in the areas of banking & finance, private equity, mergers & acquisitions and dispute resolution among others.

It’s worth noting that an ET report in August had hinted the possible participation of Sequoia and Matrix in Gupta and Jerome’s venture. However, it didn’t mention details about the product and other investors.

According to RoC filings, Amica Financial Technologies (holding entity of Jupiter) would involve in the business of legal, accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities amongst others. However, we couldn’t verify whether the company will cover all these services through Jupiter or not.

Entrackr has sent queries to Gupta, Matrix, Sequoia, Bansal and Shah. We will update the post as and when they respond.

Jupiter would compete with NiYO that offers digital banking solutions. It’s backed by Tencent, Social Capital, Horizon Ventures, Prime Ventures Partners and JS Capital, among others. In case, it gets into book-keeping and accounting segments, Jupiter would rub shoulders with Lightspeed-backed OKCredit and Tencent-funded Khatabook.

Update: The product name is Jupiter, not Digifin. We have updated the story and headline. Regret for the error.