New Delhi, Oct. 31 -- New York-headquartered private equity firm General Atlantic, which makes both late-stage venture capital and growth equity investments in India, has led a fresh funding round in fintech startup Snapmint.
The round also drew participation from Prudent Investment Managers, Kae Capital, Elev8 Venture Partners and existing angel investors, General Atlantic said in a statement. It didn't disclose the amount it invested.
The startup, which allows users to shop via EMI without a credit card, has reportedly secured $125 million (Rs 1,110 crore) in the round. VCCircle first reported about Snapmint's plans to raise a big-ticket funding round in September.
Snapmint was founded in 2017 by IIT Bombay alumni Nalin Agrawal, Anil Gelra, and Abhineet Sawa. It provides no-cost EMI solutions for online shopping across online categories. It has tie-ups with Xiaomi, Croma, Cult, Arvind Fashions, Zepto, Swiggy, among others. It works with lending partners such as Vivriti, MAS, Northern Arc, ICICI Bank, and AU Small Finance Bank
Snapmint competes in the buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) segment with players like Fibe and Axio. Currently, it has more than 7 million monthly active users across 23,000 pin code areas in India and finances more than 1.5 million purchases every month.
Snapmint said it plans to use the capital to grow its Equated Monthly Instalments (EMI) on UPI offering and expand its merchant network.
"We believe India will leapfrog credit cards and go straight to EMI on UPI. We have pioneered EMI on UPI since 2020 and have enabled brands to increase their sales by 10 to 20% with our offering," said co-founder Agrawal.
In December, Snapmint raised $18 million (over Rs 150 crore then) in a mix of equity and debt in a round led by Prashasta Seth, founder of Prudent Investment Managers, with participation from Perpetuity Ventures, and Pegasus Fininvest.
Radix Capital Advisors, led by Abhishek Taparia, was Snapmint's exclusive investment banking advisor in the new round.
General Atlantic's other deals
The latest transaction is General Atlantic's second investment in the fintech space recently. Earlier this week, it doubled down on its investment in Walmart-backed PhonePe and participated in a $600 million secondary round, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The investment, which was done to meet tax obligations for employees exercising their stock options (ESOPs), pushed General Atlantic's stake in PhonePe to 9% from 4.4% previously. The PE firm had invested in PhonePe in 2023 across multiple tranches at a valuation of $12 billion.
The Bengaluru-based digital payment company recently filed its preliminary papers for an initial public offering via the confidential route.
PhonePe did not comment for this article.
Earlier this month, General Atlantic also pumped an additional sum into hospital chain Cygnus Medicare Pvt Ltd to help it finance an acquisition. Previously, it put more capital into eyecare chain ASG Hospital Pvt Ltd, along with Indian PE firm Kedaara Capital and two other investors.
The PE firm has been busy monetizing its local investments. It recently changed its game plan to monetize its bet on Rubicon Research Ltd, selling more shares than previously planned in the pharmaceutical products developer's initial public offering and making three pre-IPO exit moves. It also offloaded a part of its stake in KFin Technologies Ltd in May this year.
Last year, the PE firm exited PNB Housing Finance and Capital Foods. It took a haircut from the mortgage lender but scored benchmark returns by selling Capital Foods to Tata Consumer Products Ltd at an enterprise value of Rs 5,100 crore ($610 million). In addition, it likely wrote off its investment in bankrupt edtech firm Byju's and sold its stake in House of Anita Dongre via a buyback deal.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.