BENGALURU: FinTech start-up Slice is the latest entrant to the country's unicorn club with the latest funding round. It has raised $220 million in a Series B round and that values the company at over $1 billion. The round was led by Tiger Global and New York-based global private equity and venture capital Insight Partners.
New and existing investors including Advent International’s Sunley House Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Anfa, Gunosy, Blume Ventures, and 8i also participated in the round.
The start-up focussed on India's youngsters wants to use the funding to expand and strengthen its presence in the payments space, hire talent, and expand its product offerings.
According to industry estimates, only less than 35 million people have access to credit cards and the country's credit rating system covers only a fraction of this population. The start-up wants to address this gap through its slice super card, a prepaid visa card with a credit line that allows hundreds of millions of Indians to get credit card-like benefits as well as to build their credit score, the startup said.
Slice, which is shipping over 200,000 cards each month, recently opened doors to the new-to-credit population. They can start their financial journey with the newly introduced card with a limit of Rs 2,000, it added.
Commenting on the new funding, Slice Founder and CEO Rajan Bajaj said, “Since the inception of the company, we’ve held a considerably different point of view from a typical start-up. The idea has never been to burn capital and acquire users forcefully, but to set up a sustainable and robust business. We have kept our heads down in the initial years and focused solely on simplifying the consumer journey and creating a cutting-edge risk underwriting system.”
“Slice targets an underpenetrated market in India and allows users to make online payments, pay bills, and more,'' said Insight Partners Managing Director Deven Parekh.
“There is a large opportunity in the credit and payment space in India, and Slice is well-positioned to become the leader in the industry," he added.
In January this year, Rajan Bajaj tweeted, "I want @sliceit_ to become a Unicorn before I get to 30." He said, "While we are very proud of the product that we have created and the exponential growth of our company since the launch of the Slice super card, there is still a long way to go. We will silently and steadily become a common household name.”
The start-up now boasts a registered user base of over 5 million with an average age of 27, and a 40% month-on-month growth rate.