School fee focused fintech platform Financepeer raises $38 Mn

Education focused lending platform Financepeer has raised around $38 million in a Series B round led by QED Fund. This would be the second institutional round for the Bengaluru-based firm. It had raised Series A led by Jaipur-based NBFC, MS Fincap in September 2020.

Financepeer has issued 35,805 CCPS having a face value of Rs 10 per share at a premium of Rs 80,578 per share to raise Rs 288.5 crore or close to $38 million, its regulatory filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) show.

QED Fund has spearheaded the round with an infusion of Rs 81.4 crore or $10.7 million. Kaizen and Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij Voor (FMO, a Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank) invested Rs 52.72 crore each. Aavishkaar India Fund, Capri Global Holdings, and Ardent Venture Fund invested Rs 44.4 crore, Rs 20 crore, and Rs 14.8 crore respectively.

Nandan Chandavarkar (Rs 10 crore), 9 Unicorns (Rs 7.5 crore), and Ameya Chandavarkar (Rs 5 crore) invested the remaining amount.

Financepeer claims that over 22,00,000 parents use its credit platform to pay their children's fees across 6,000 institutes at one go. The company enables parents to repay tuition fees to Financepeer in monthly installments and provides ancillary services. Some of the notable schools on the platform include Delhi Public School, GEMS Education, Birla Open Minds and Orchids, Khan Academy and Fliplearn among others.

According to Fintrackr’s estimates, Financepeer has been valued at around $70 million or Rs 534.15 crore (post-money). Post allotment, the collective stakeholding of the co-founders Rohit Gajbhiye, Sunit Gajbhiye, Debi Prasad Baral and Naveesh Reddy has been diluted to 10.12% (non including ESOPS) from 26.6% before this round. Further, the company has increased its ESOP pool to 6600 options which is now worth around Rs 55 crore.

The company was incubated at Google in mid-2020 and had raised $3 million led by MS Fincap. Grayquest, Avanse Financial, and Eduvanz are its direct competitors. Avanse is one of the largest players in this space and had recently closed its first securitization transaction to raise $48 million led by debt financier Northern Arc Capital. Sequoia-backed Eduvanz had raised around $13.5 million in its Series B round in August last year whereas Grayquest closed its pre-Series A round worth $1.2 million during the same month.