Khatabook is a startup that helps companies in India to keep records of their finances. Now, the company has banked around $60 million in new funding round as it looks to gain more customers.
More importantly, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital led the funding round. Several existing partners also participated in the round, like Partners of DST, Sequoia India, GGV Capital, Tencent, Falcon Edge Capital, Uniliver ventures and Rocketship.vc.
The one and half year startup closed its funding round last year in October. Moreover, until today, the company has raised around $87 million. Now, the company’s value is around $275 to $300 million.
Around a million Indians came online during the last decade. However, several merchants in the country are still offline. They rely on notebooks to record their financial transactions. The process is quite time consuming and can lead to losses.
Khatabook aims to change all this by using the apps which digitize bookkeeping and helps in payments.
Currently, around 8 million merchants use Khatabook, according to the CEO, Ravish Naresh.
Naresh said in a statement, “During the last year, we spent time in growing our users. And this has worked for Khatabook. Moreover, today the company competes with OkCredit, Walmart’s Phone-Pe, and Paytm. All these companies have raised more money than Khatabook.
However, all the firms have had a decrease in user base in the past months as India has ordered the stay-at-home orders for its citizens. Besides, most firms have had a 20% decline in their usage.
According to Naresh, most Khatabook merchants are from smaller towns and cities, which are away from larger cities.
Naresh didn’t comment on AppAnnie’s data. However, it added that the merchants are adding around $200 million worth of transactions.
Kabir Rang, a general Partner of B Capital, stated, “We believe that the sophisticated MSMEs will double over the next five years. Moreover, many economies will drive the economy during COVID-19 and require all the necessary tools to make their business efficient.”Amir Jan, the former head of Uber in India, said that over 50% of small businesses need to get online. Moreover, government data shows that there are 60 million micro-sized businesses in India. A report from Credit Sussie states that the Indian payment market would be $1 trillion by 2023.