Successful second term entrepreneurs have been raising bigger seed rounds. Kunal Shah, Ashish Kashyap and Jitendra Gupta each raised over $25 million rounds at idea stages, without a working product.
On similar lines, Nitin Gupta, PayU co-founder and former Ola Financial CEO, is in advanced conversations to raise $18-20 million for his yet-to-be-launched fintech startup UniOrbit.
According to three Entrackr sources, Gupta’s company would be centred around SME lending. “The seed round is set to be materialised at a valuation of $40-45 million. Accel Partners and Lightspeed would lead the round while some individual investors are likely to participate,” said one of the sources on condition of anonymity.
This would be Gupta’s third startup. Previously, he founded PayU and Khojguru. A few weeks ago, Gupta also registered a new entity UniOrbit Technologies Private Limited. Former Ola executive Prateek Jindal is another director in UniOrbit, show regulatory filings.
Sources added that Gupta’s new venture would offer credit products under the name Uni. “It’s likely to launch a credit card focused on small and medium enterprises,” said the second source. “Gupta has roped in two more individuals as core founding members from the financial services sectors and is currently hiring across product, tech and operations.”
Entrackr couldn’t ascertain the details of the two other co-founders.
Gupta was the CEO and co-founder of PayU for over five years. After exiting the Naspers-owned payments firm in 2011, he ventured into angel investing. His portfolio includes OfBusiness, BharatPe, Trell, Mosaic Wellness, CoHo among a few others.
In December 2017, Gupta joined Ola Financial Services as CEO and resigned in May after a two-and-a-half year-long stint. “Gupta has been passively working on his new gig from the beginning of this year,” added the above-quoted person. The person requested anonymity as well. “While UniOrbit would dilute about half of the company in the seed round, it won’t look to raise more money for the next two years.”
Entrackr queries sent to Accel, Lightspeed and Gupta didn’t elicit any response. We will update the story as and when they respond.
Gupta is one of the handful of entrepreneurs who has closed large amounts in maiden financing. Shah’s Cred and Kashyap’s IndMoney raised close to $30 million in seed rounds while Jitendra Gupta scooped up $25 million for his second venture – Jupiter.
