Zeta may turn unicorn with fresh round led by SoftBank Vision Fund: Report

Modern banking tech company Zeta is in talks to raise around $250 million in its Series D round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

The Mumbai-based company will raise this round at a valuation of over $1 billion and entered the unicorn club, according to a TechCrunch report. The round is yet to be closed, the report added.

In July 2019, Zeta had raised $60 million in its Series C round from Sodexo at an estimated valuation of $300 million.

After Groww and CRED, Zeta will be the third fintech startup to attain unicorn status in April and overall seventh in the month so far. If the deal goes through, it will also record a 3X jump in valuation on the lines of social commerce platform Meesho, Grow and CRED.

Queries sent to SoftBank and Zeta did not elicit an immediate response. We’ll update the post in case they do.

Led by series entrepreneurs Bhavin Thurakia and Ramki Gadipatti, Zeta is a full-stack neo-banking platform for issuing credit, debit, and prepaid products, enabling banks and financial institutions to launch modern retail and corporate fintech products. 

The company helps financial institutions in authentication, fraud and risk management. Zeta’s solutions are being used by BFSI issuers in India, Asia, and Latin America. The company counts RBL Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank as its clients along with 14,000 corporates. 

It also provides API, SDKs and payment gateways to banks.

Besides, Zeta provides a feature through which users can instantaneously generate a digital card for their family members including teenagers.  In India, FamPay, Junio, Walrus and Yodda have similar products.

Founded in 2015, Zeta used to be a tax-saving reimbursements, expense management, salary disbursement, employee rewards and recognition including corporate cafeteria solutions platform. However, the company had pivoted to focus on banks-centric fintech solutions.

According to an ET report, Zeta is also a part of a consortium led by Paytm to set up a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) to build a national payments infrastructure company.

Update: We have changed the headline and story after an update from TechCrunch.