Parul
The seven-year-old Bengaluru-based start-up, has raised in a $7 million Series B funding as it aims to grow its reach to more than one million small scale enterprises (SMEs) and micro-SMEs in India.
Instamojo offers independent merchants the means to operate a mobile-optimized storefront, collect payments and even take micro-loans. As per news reports, Instamojo CEO and Co-founder Sampad Swain said that “the company has some 650,000 merchants, and it is adding a further 1,200 daily. Most of them tend to earn less than $30,000 in annual sales with around half selling physical products, such as e-commerce items, and the remaining using Instamojo to invoice for physical services or sell digital items such as courses.”
It is reported that the new funding is led by existing investor AnyPay the Japanese fintech start-up with other returning backers such as Kalaari Capital, Beenext and angel investor Rashmi Kwatra joining in. In fact, Gunosy Capital, the VC arm of Japanese news app Gunosy also joined as a new investor. With these deals, Instamojo has raised around $9 million from investors till date.
Swain further added that he sees a huge opportunity in India, where he believes there are 65 million SMEs, of which 25 million are “micro-merchants”. The company is planning a Series C round later this year to finance a deeper push.
Instamojo collects revenue through a two per cent cut on sales, a fee on successful deliveries and commission on its micro-loan product, which essentially gives merchants advanced credit on their sales as per their business model.
