A fintech business backed by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) has received a USD 100 million investment from big global corporations, including Google, bringing the total amount raised to USD 137 million.
Open, a neo-banking platform for SMEs, received massive investment in a Series C funding of more than Rs 753 crore to help it move on with its plans.
According to a press statement issued here on Wednesday, Temasek, Singapore’s national wealth fund, led the round, with Google and SBI Investment, as well as previous investors Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital, also participating.
Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko, Deena Jacob, and Ajeesh Achuthan founded the business in 2017, and it already has partnerships with over a dozen prominent Indian banks.
According to John M Thomas, CEO of KSUM, the investment is a significant milestone for a company from the state.
“It shows that our startups are highly competent to attract investment from big global players. This also comes as an encouragement for promising startups in our ecosystem,” he said.
“We are delighted to have Open in our startup ecosystem and I congratulate the founders on achieving new heights. We are certain that the firm will come up with more critical solutions for the fintech sector,” Mr. Thomas added.
Open’s new product lines – Zwitch, an embedded finance platform, and BankingStack, a cloud-native SME banking platform for financial institutions – will be strengthened and accelerated, according to Anish Achuthan, Cofounder and CEO. Its technology is now in use in over 15 Indian banks.
“We are helping banks build their own new-age digital banking platforms and also offering solutions to other fintech startups to build their embedded finance, and the current round of funding has come at the right time”, he said.
Open’s platform now serves over one lakh SMEs and handles over USD 5 billion in transactions annually. Every month, the platform adds over 20,000 SMEs, making it the world’s fastest-growing SME-focused neo-banking service.
Open plans to grow into foreign markets such as Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States, where it now employs around 500 employees. The financing of Open is the latest in a long line of Google investments in India over the last year.
KSUM is the state’s government’s nodal agency for entrepreneurship development and incubation initiatives.
