Fintech start-up Open, which offers a business banking service for SMEs and start-ups, has raised INR 210 crores (USD 30 million) in a Series B round. The funding was led by Tiger Global Management and saw participation from Tanglin Venture Partners Advisors. Existing investors 3one4 Capital, Speedinvest and BetterCapital AngelList Syndicate also participated in the round.
Open plans to use the funding to scale up the team, launch more products & value-added services and expand its reach to 1 million SMEs in the next one year. Open is immediately set to launch two new products to enhance its business banking proposition; the Open+ card, a business credit card with a 30-day interest-free credit line, for venture backed start-ups and Layer, a unique programmable bank account for developers.
Founded in 2017, Open is solving business banking challenges faced by SMEs and start-ups. Open offers a business account in partnership with banks which helps businesses automate and run their finances effectively. This business account has all the tools that helps businesses send and receive payments combined with the automated bookkeeping tool to integrate banking into their business workflows. The Open platform today has already grown to over 1 lakh SMEs and processing over INR 35,000 crores in transaction. The platform also adds over 20000 SMEs every month, making it the fastest growing SME focused neo-banking service globally.
The new business banking product from the Open stable and the Open+ business credit card will be offered to help start-ups who are currently being ignored by traditional credit companies. The card comes with an integrated end-to-end expense management platform that enables businesses to issue physical or virtual cards to their employees with custom spend limits and seamless expense filing.
Open is also enhancing its API banking suite with the introduction of Layer - a programmable bank account that will enable developers to control money programmatically, build their own features on top of the bank account and securely integrate with other services.
Anish and Mabel have over a decade of experience in building disruptive fintech startups like branchless-banking startup Cashnxt (2009), NFC-payment startup Neartivity (2011), and developer payment platform Zwitch(2014). The entrepreneur-couple’s previous venture Zwitch was acquired by CitrusPay in September 2015. Prior to Open, Anish was VP (New Initiatives) and Business Head at CitrusPay and PayU. Mabel was heading Marketing and SMB acquisition for CitrusPay and PayU. Open operates through an 85-member team based out of Bangalore and has offices in Mumbai and New Delhi.
Open was founded in May 2017 and has previously raised investments from Beenext, Speedinvest, Recruit Japan, Unicorn India Ventures, DICE fintech and other angel investors that include Citruspay Founders Amrish Rau and Jitendra Gupta, TaxiforSure founder Apremaya Radhakrishna, Chiranth Patil of BetaPlus Ventures, Archana Priyadarshini of Unicorn India Ventures and Vaibhav Domkudwar through BetterCapital AngelList Syndicate.
Tiger Global Management, LLC is an investment firm that deploys capital globally. The firm's fundamentally oriented investments focus primarily on the global Internet, software, financial technology, consumer and industrial sectors. The private equity strategy has a ten-year investment horizon and targets growth-oriented private companies. Such investments have included Spotify, Harry's, Warby Parker, Peloton, JD.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yandex, Mail.ru Group, Despegar, Ola and Flipkart. The public equity efforts emphasize deep due diligence on individual companies and long-term secular themes. Tiger Global Management, LLC was founded in 2001 and is based in New York with affiliate offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Melbourne.
Open plans to use the funding to scale up the team, launch more products & value-added services and expand its reach to 1 million SMEs in the next one year. Open is immediately set to launch two new products to enhance its business banking proposition; the Open+ card, a business credit card with a 30-day interest-free credit line, for venture backed start-ups and Layer, a unique programmable bank account for developers.
Founded in 2017, Open is solving business banking challenges faced by SMEs and start-ups. Open offers a business account in partnership with banks which helps businesses automate and run their finances effectively. This business account has all the tools that helps businesses send and receive payments combined with the automated bookkeeping tool to integrate banking into their business workflows. The Open platform today has already grown to over 1 lakh SMEs and processing over INR 35,000 crores in transaction. The platform also adds over 20000 SMEs every month, making it the fastest growing SME focused neo-banking service globally.
The new business banking product from the Open stable and the Open+ business credit card will be offered to help start-ups who are currently being ignored by traditional credit companies. The card comes with an integrated end-to-end expense management platform that enables businesses to issue physical or virtual cards to their employees with custom spend limits and seamless expense filing.
Open is also enhancing its API banking suite with the introduction of Layer - a programmable bank account that will enable developers to control money programmatically, build their own features on top of the bank account and securely integrate with other services.
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| Anish Achuthan, Co-Founder & CEO, Open |
Commenting on the funding, Anish Achuthan, CEO, Open said, “Being one of the fastest growing SME neo-banking platforms in the world, the key is to match the ever-increasing customer demand for seamless financial management. For this, we have to scale up the technology and our team. This funding will help us accelerate our target of simplifying business banking for more than 1 million businesses at a greater pace and also launching new products like the Open+ card and Layer that will enhance our value proposition for small businesses”.
Open Financial Technologies Pvt Ltd (www.bankopen.co) is a neo-banking startup based in Bangalore. Open is founded by serial entrepreneurs Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko and Ajeesh Achuthan along with ex-TaxiforSure CFO Deena Jacob.
Open Financial Technologies Pvt Ltd (www.bankopen.co) is a neo-banking startup based in Bangalore. Open is founded by serial entrepreneurs Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko and Ajeesh Achuthan along with ex-TaxiforSure CFO Deena Jacob.
Anish and Mabel have over a decade of experience in building disruptive fintech startups like branchless-banking startup Cashnxt (2009), NFC-payment startup Neartivity (2011), and developer payment platform Zwitch(2014). The entrepreneur-couple’s previous venture Zwitch was acquired by CitrusPay in September 2015. Prior to Open, Anish was VP (New Initiatives) and Business Head at CitrusPay and PayU. Mabel was heading Marketing and SMB acquisition for CitrusPay and PayU. Open operates through an 85-member team based out of Bangalore and has offices in Mumbai and New Delhi.
Open was founded in May 2017 and has previously raised investments from Beenext, Speedinvest, Recruit Japan, Unicorn India Ventures, DICE fintech and other angel investors that include Citruspay Founders Amrish Rau and Jitendra Gupta, TaxiforSure founder Apremaya Radhakrishna, Chiranth Patil of BetaPlus Ventures, Archana Priyadarshini of Unicorn India Ventures and Vaibhav Domkudwar through BetterCapital AngelList Syndicate.
Tiger Global Management, LLC is an investment firm that deploys capital globally. The firm's fundamentally oriented investments focus primarily on the global Internet, software, financial technology, consumer and industrial sectors. The private equity strategy has a ten-year investment horizon and targets growth-oriented private companies. Such investments have included Spotify, Harry's, Warby Parker, Peloton, JD.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yandex, Mail.ru Group, Despegar, Ola and Flipkart. The public equity efforts emphasize deep due diligence on individual companies and long-term secular themes. Tiger Global Management, LLC was founded in 2001 and is based in New York with affiliate offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Melbourne.
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