India's Mobikwik raises $50m in Series C funding
India-based mobile wallet developer Mobikwik has raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding led by Japanese internet company GMO, Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer MediaTek, and existing backer Sequoia Capital.
It is unclear whether this represents the entire Series C round. Upasana Taku, one of Mobikwik's co-founders, told The Times of India that the company had raised an undisclosed sum and is on course to close the round at $80-100 million, in line with the initial target.
Founded in 2009 by Taku and Bipin Preet, MobiKwik partners with retailers to provide digital payment services for use both online and offline. It claims a network comprising 30 million users and 75,000 retailers and has a goal to facilitate $5 billion in transactions involving 150 million users and 500,000 retailers. Gross merchandize value is said to have grown 250% year-on-year over the last four years.
The Mobikwik wallet allows customers to deposit money into an online account and use that to make payments to merchants, rather than enter bank details for every transaction. In addition to bill payments and money transfers, the wallet can be used to top up mobile phone credit, book tickets and access special offers. Major competitors include Alibaba Group-backed Paytm.
GMO said that Mobikwik had raised $30 million in funding prior to this most recent investment. This total may not include a $25 million commitment led by Tree Line Asia last year, which was also described as a Series C round. American Express and Cisco Investments are among the other investors in the company.
The mobile wallet is one of the more popular online payment models, catering to the many customers who do not have credit or debit cards. Other approaches that have also received VC support involve encouraging the adoption of credit and debit cards by making them easier for rural customers to use. Companies operating in this area tend to produce card readers that can be connected to mobile phones.
GMO's investment came through the GMO Global Payment Fund, which is run by the company's payment processing platform GMO Payment Gateway, according to a statement. The fund is intended to support payments-related businesses so that GMO is able to serve Japanese e-commerce businesses going overseas.
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