BharatPe Raises $20 Mn Debt From Alteria Capital and ICICI BankTill date, the company has raised a total of $28 million in debt

Financial services company BharatPe on Monday announced that it has raised $20 million (INR 139 crore) in debt from Alteria Capital and ICICI Bank. The company shared that it has raised INR 90 crore in debt from Alteria Capital and INR 49 crore from ICICI Bank.

Till date, the company has raised a total of $28 million in debt.

Founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018, BharatPe launched India's first UPI interoperable QR code, first ZERO MDR payment acceptance service, and first UPI payment-backed merchant cash advance service. In recent times, BharatPe also launched ZERO MDR card acceptance terminals, BharatSwipe.

Commenting on the debt fund raise, Grover, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), BharatPe, said,"It is a great validation of our business model.We have committed ourselves to have$700 million of loans to small merchants and kirana store owners by March 2023 and are hoping to on-board more institutional debt partners in the near future.We aim to become a digital bank that is the one-stop destination for merchants for all kinds of financial services and this tranche of funds will get things rolling."

Currently the company is serving over 5 million merchants across 65 cities. BharatPe boasts of witnessing a 30 per cent rise in its business growth in 2019 and has processed over 60 million UPI transactions a month. The company has already facilitated disbursement of over INR 800 crore to its merchants since launch. The company is disbursing loans of INR 200 crore per month to merchant partners currently and has set a target of disbursing INR 1,000 crore of loans in financial year 2021.

"We are excited to lead this debt round for BharatPe which is also a sign of the maturity of the Indian ecosystem where mature startups can construct debt rounds on the strength of their balance sheet as well as business traction. BharatPe has shown sharp growth and we believe the ability to leverage their extensive small merchant network to funnel credit is going to play out well in this decade." said Vinod Murali, managing partner at Alteria Capital.

The company till date has raised close to $171 million in equity and debt, till date.