What is BharatPe?
Online Banking and UPI payments have made our lives much more comfortable than before. You no longer have to carry large amounts of money with you. You need not worry whether you will have enough change to pay at the grocery store. With UPI payments, all these transactions are right at your fingertips. UPI or Unified Payments Interface helps you send and receive money between two bank accounts using a mobile phone. There are many UPI apps available in India, like Google pay, Paytm, PhonePe etc. However, a major confusion that all merchants go through is to choose which UPI app to use. Since all these apps are equally famous, you can never predict which one the customer uses. BharatPe solves this problem by uniting all UPI payments through a single QR code.
BharatPe (1) is a payments company which helps merchants and small retailers by providing an engineer and convenient transaction platform. Just like the name sounds, it is a truly Indian firm. Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani established the company in 2018 to help out the retailers in India. Using the BharatPe QR, you can accept payments from more than 150 leading UPI platforms in the country. The most attractive feature of BharatPe is that it makes no charges for transactions. Even during setting up an account or making payments, you do not need to pay any amount of money to the company.
More than 50 lakh merchants in India are registered users of BharatPe. From small salons to luxury restaurants, all shop owners trust BharatPe. You can not only use it for the transaction between vendors and customers but also other bill payments. Mobile recharges, DTH bills, electricity, water, LPG etc. These transactions are very quick and easy with the help of BharatPe. The company has also recently launched a product known as BharatSwipe. It is the first card machine in India which carries out payments completely free of any transaction cost.
The beginning of BharatPe
The founder and Chief Executive Officer of BharatPe, Ashneer Grover, came up with the idea to help small retailers in India. Even though India has one of the leading markets for online transactions in the world, more than half of the population are not as advanced. UPI payment systems are widely established in all metro cities. However, Ashneer realised most small shop owners in India, especially the ones from rural areas, still rely on liquid cash. They are either not accustomed to online transactions or do not have the essential requirements.
Through the concept of BharatPe, Ashneer wanted to make financial transactions a hassle-free procedure for a large number of merchants in India. Even the owners of small tea shops in the city could become comfortable with digital payments with the help of BharatPe. This transaction system depends on QR codes created as a significant element of UPI instalment which is an initiative supported by the government. The retailers can set up a QR code in their shops, and any client that utilises a UPI-controlled instalments application can make payments easily.
Since BharatPe is supported by almost every UPI payments mobile app in India, this can be very quick and convenient. Through BharatPe, these merchants can also enjoy many other benefits. They can make use of a dashboard which shows how many customers owe them money. This feature of BharatPe helps them to track the payments made by customers and also receive regular reminders regarding the pending payments.
The features of BharatPe
In addition to quick mobile payments, BharatPe offers various other benefits that make it the favourite application for many vendors. Users can also make an extra income by simply using BharatPe. Each time you complete payment through the app, you get a one per cent cashback. The XtraIncome card allows you to spend money from the balance in your interest account. You can make such payments to more than 40 lakh online and offline stores in India.
Through the platform, the merchants can easily apply for loans without any processing fee. When any financial emergency arises, it can be difficult for them to go to a bank and apply for loans. It can take a lot of time and requires many documents and verification processes. Moreover, these services are only available during the working time of a nearby bank. BharatPe solves this problem by offering easy and quick loans of up to seven lakh rupees. The company charges much less interest than the typical market rates. You can complete all the procedures through a mobile phone and receive the money in the shortest time.
Using the BharatPe balance feature, the users can easily view their business capital. In a single window, you can see the number of transactions and the total amount received in a day. The app also shows the balance in interest account and possible point of loan they can avail from BharatPe. The app also has a quite exciting feature to support the sports lovers in the country. You get points known as ‘runs’ from BharatPe each time you complete a transaction. All you need to do is collect these runs by making various exchanges in a day. Then you can redeem it to meet your favourite cricket players. BharatPe offers a thrilling chance to get awesome sports goodies autographs by these players.
BharatPe funding and investments
The major investors in BharatPe are Steadview Capital, Insight Partners, Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital etc. In the same year when BharatPe began its services, the company led a seed round of funding in October, which raised five million dollars. The leading investors in this round were BEENEXT and Sequoia Capital India. They conducted the series A round in February 2019 which was also led by Sequoia Capital India. It raised 14.5 million dollars.
Later in June 2019, BharatPe carried out a Series B round of funding led by Steadview Capital and Ribbit Capital, which is a San Francisco-based enterprise. It raised 50 million dollars for BharatPe using which they extended their services to an additional 3.5 million sellers in the country. The 2000 salespeople hired by the company helped to make four lakh merchants register on the app every month. They also utilised the funds raised to enhance their technological capabilities and add capital to the loans on BharatPe. Very recently, in February 2020, BharatPe raised 75 million dollars through Series C funding. This round was led by Coatue Management and Ribbit Capital along with existing investors.
