Banking Tech startup Zeta turns Unicorn with Series C $250 Mn Fundraise from SoftBank Vision Fund II

With a Series C infusion from SoftBank Vision Fund II, Zeta is the latest Indian Startup to join the Unicorn Club. The 6-year-old startup, raised $250, confirming the speculations rising from April 2021. The Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati-led startup is the second company, after Meesho, backed by SoftBank to turn Unicorn this year. It is also the 14th Unicorn startup in 2021.

It joins Moglix, UrbanCompany, after Chargebee, CRED, Groww, PharmEasy, ShareChat, GupShup and Meesho in the Unicorn Club. Previously, insurtech startup Digit Insurance, SaaS startup InnovAccer, B2B commerce company Infra.Market and NBFC Five Star Business Finance turned into unicorns. Interestingly, many startups will turn Unicorns in their next rounds. Some prominent names include BharatPe, MPL Practo, Dunzo and MX Player.

Bhavin Turakhia, in a briefing, confirmed the fundraise and said, “Banks are still stuck in the ’80s. Many of them still use COBOL programming language. They offer a poor user experience. To make up for it, banks end up working with dozens of vendor and technology partners. Nobody thought of building the bank stack from the ground up. Until now”.

About Zeta

Zeta started as a digital employee expense management and coupon company. It has pivoted to become a full-stack neo-banking platform for businesses. When Turakhia invested in Zeta in 2016, it offered digitized enterprise solutions for employee tax benefits, automated cafeterias, employee gifting and digital payments. Initially, Zeta payments also only supported the MasterCard network. Later, the company tied up with the National Payments Corporation of India's RuPay. The next year, Zeta acquired a minority stake in ZingHR and later launched the first employee benefits survey in India along with Nielsen Holdings in April 2018. It also bought a minority stake in PeopleStrong in January 2018.

“Any financial service you can think of, Zeta provides it today,” TechCrunch quoted Turakhia. The company helps financial institutions in authentication, fraud and risk management. Many BFSI issuers in India, Asia, and Latin America, today, use the services of Zeta. The company counts RBL Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank as its clients along with 14,000 corporates.