BharatPe set to become unicorn with a new round led by Tiger Global

UPI-focused digital payments and lending company BharatPe is all set to raise a fresh round from new and existing investors, according to three sources aware of the development.

“Tiger Global is in the last leg to lead a $200-250 million fresh round in BharatPe,” said one of the sources on the condition of anonymity. The terms of the deal are almost finalised which would make BharatPe a new unicorn in the payments space, the person added.

According to Fintrackr, BharatPe was valued at $922 million in its last financing.

“BharatPe would be valued in the range of $1.8 billion to $2.2 billion in this new transaction,” said the second person who also wished not to be identified as talks are private.

The potential financing round for the three-year-old firm comes after its Series D round led by Coatue Management in February. If this deal goes through, BharatPe will become the 13th startup to turn into a unicorn in 2021. 

Tiger Global has already backed eight out of the twelve startups that have turned unicorn in 2021. The list includes Chargebee, Gupshup, ShareChat, Groww, CRED, Urban Company, Innovaccer and Infra.Market.

Last month, The CapTable had reported that BharatPe was in talks with Tiger Global to raise a fresh round.

Tiger Global declined to comment for the story whereas queries sent to BharatPe did not elicit any immediate response. We will update the story in case they do.

With this, BharatPe will become the fifth most valued fintech company in India after Paytm, PhonePe, Razorpay and Pine Labs. Last month, business-focused payment gateway cum neo banking platform Razorpay had scooped up $160 million from GIC and Sequoia Capital at a $3 billion valuation. 

According to Entrackr’s sources, Pine Labs is also in talks to raise a new round at around $3 billion valuation before a potential IPO.

The Ashneer Grover-led company provides loans to its merchants through its NBFC partners. The fintech company had also forayed into PoS business with a lending layer last year, and has so far claimed to deploy more than 50,000 such machines.

Lending has turned out to be one of the major revenue channels for BharatPe and this also reflected through its claim of over $200 million disbursal since the launch of its lending vertical in May 2019. The company aims to disburse $1 billion by FY22 and $2 billion by FY23.

Backed by the likes of Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital, BharatPe has raised around $275 million across equity and debt round to date.

Update: The total number of unicorns backed by Tiger Global has been updated in the story.