Kerala Startup Mission-mentored fintech startup Open raises $100 mn from global majors like Google
The fintech startup ‘Open’ raised Rs 753 cr in rupee terms, and the exercise saw the participation of Temasek, Google, and Japan’s SBI Investment.
A Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) mentored neo-banking platform for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), based in Kerala, has raised $100 million investment from large global firms, including Internet giant Google. With this investment flowing in, Open, the fintech start-up, has taken the total sum raised so far to $137 million.
This latest round of investment, which translates into Rs 753 crore in rupee terms came as part of a Series C funding aimed at speeding up its future operations.
While Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek led the round, Google, Japan’s SBI Investment, chipped in with major shares. The company’s existing investors Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital also participated in the Series C financing.
Funding proves competence of Kerala startup firms: KSUM CEO
According to John M Thomas, CEO, Kerala Startup Mission, this new development is a major achievement for a startup from the state. He added that the new mop-up of funds by the Kerala based fintech firm reveals the fact that startups in Kerala are highly competent to attract investment from big global players.
Open plans to use the fresh funds to strengthen and accelerate its new product lines such as Zwitch, an embedded finance platform, and BankingStack, a cloud-native SME banking platform for financial institutions. Open’s technology is currently deployed at over 15 banks in India.
Pointing out that Open is helping banks build their own new-age digital banking platforms and also offering solutions to other fintech startups to build their embedded finance, Anish Achuthan, Co-founder and CEO, Open, said that the current round of funding has come at the right time.
Open’s platform has already grown to over one lakh SMEs and processes over $5 billion in transactions. The platform also adds over 20,000 SMEs every month, making it the fastest-growing SME focused neo-banking service globally, a company statement said.
Open lines up expansion to SE Asia, Europe, US
The startup, which currently has manpower of around 500, has been looking to expand to Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States.
It may be noted here that the funding of Open is the latest in a series of investments made by Google in India in the past year. KSUM operates as the nodal agency of the Kerala Government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.
Open, founded by Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko, Deena Jacob and Ajeesh Achuthan, in 2017, has entered into partnerships with over a dozen top banks in India.
