[Funding] SBI invests in leading digital payments firm Cashfree

Digital payments and banking technology startup Cashfree has announced that the State Bank of India (SBI) has invested an undisclosed amount in the organisation. The move reinforces their shared vision of promoting digital modes of payments, the company said in a statement. “We are excited about our partnership with SBI,” says Akash Sinha, Co-Founder & CEO, Cashfree. “It shows its trust in Cashfree’s innovation and the way we are rapidly scaling up the payments business. This also underscores our role in building a payments ecosystem that enables the fastest and easiest way to collect payments and make payouts for growing businesses.”

“As we work towards digitising the economy, we remain committed to bringing uniformity, transparency and a reduced turnaround time to digital transactions among Indian businesses. The investment fits perfectly with our growth strategy; as we continue to focus on customer experience and product innovation,” he further added.

Cashfree, in November, raised $35 million at a valuation of around $200 million in a Series B funding round led. Apis Growth Fund II and existing investor Y Combinator participated in the round. It competes with the likes of Razorpay, Billdesk, CCAvenue and PayU. Further, it specialises in payment settlement processing transactions through channels and instruments including credit card, debit card, net banking, UPI and popular wallets.

About Cashfree

IIIT-H alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT-KGP graduate Reeju Datta founded Cashfree in 2015. Today, it is among the leading payment service providers in India and processes transactions worth USD 20 Billion annually. It has leveraged technology to lead payment disbursals in India with more than 50% market share among payment processors. Cashfree enables more than 1,00,000 businesses with payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, and now, SBI, back the Fintech startup. Further, the PayPal-incubated startup is present in eight countries including the USA, Canada, and the UAE.

It counts businesses like Zomato, CRED, Nykaa, Delhivery, Acko, Shell, among others as its customers for various business payment needs like e-commerce payment collection, vendor payments, marketplace settlements etc.