BENGALURU: Bengaluru-based neobanking platform Open on Monday became India’s 100th unicorn as it raised $50 million in a Series D round from IIFL along with existing investors Temasek, Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital. With this, the start-up has raised over $140 million in funding so far.
The neobanking fintech is now valued at $1 billion. The funding will help Open accelerate its existing product lines Zwitch, which is an embedded finance platform and BankingStack, an enterprise banking solution for banks, drive global expansion and reach over 5 million customers within the next one year, the company said.
It is also the 16th unicorn in 2022. Games 24x7 was the last start-up that turned unicorn in the first quarter of this calendar year 2022. This fund raising comes at a time when there is a slowdown in funding activities across sectors. In April, only a few companies managed to raise funds. Over 44 start-ups turned unicorns last year and according to a PwC report, in 2022 alone over 50 start-ups could enter the club. Total funding in Q1, 2022, stood at $9.2 billion, according to a report by research firm Tracxn.
Open also plans to double its workforce from the present 500 to 1,000 in one year. In the last one year, Open has increased its customer base to 2.3 million customers, and with this investment, the new unicorn will accelerate its new product offering on SME lending.
Open is aiming to disburse $1 bn in lending via the new suite of products on the platform in the next one year. Anish Achuthan, co-founder and CEO of Open, said, “We see a lot of synergies with IIFL on leveraging the lending book, as we are getting ready to launch innovative products like revenue-based financing, early settlement, working capital loan and business credit cards to SMEs on our platform.”