MobiKwik to add more money in its wallet, raises $50M funding

MobiKwik, a mobile wallet services company, has raised $50 million (Rs 332.6 crore) in Series C round led by GMO, Japan’s payment gateway, and Mediatek, Taiwan-based Semiconductor Company. The money will be poured into product innovation, strengthening team, and user acquisition. The Series C round, which was closed four months ago, also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Treeline Asia.

The company had raised Rs 44 crore in December last year completing its Series B round. Till date, the company has raised funds from Sequoia Capital, American Express, Tree Line Asia, and Cisco Investment.

“We are very excited to live up to the investors’ expectations and raise the funding,” says Bipin Preet Singh, Founder and CEO of MobiKwik.

GMO Payment Gateway in one of its statements said that they led this investment through GMO Global Payment Fund in a bid to form a new strategic partnership with MobiKwik. GMO Global Payment Fund is focussed on local payment-related businesses.

Growing by leaps and bounds

Connecting 30 million users with 75,000 retailers, Gurgaon-based MobiKwik aspires to be the largest source of digital transactions in India. Launched in 2009 by Bipin and Upasana Taku, the company has created a list of quality merchants, which includes names like IRCTC, Uber, Big Bazaar, OYO Rooms, Zomato, Barista, PVR, MakeMyTrip, Myntra, Big Basket, and Domino's.

It allows users to load money into the wallet via cash, loyalty points, debit card, credit card, and netbanking. MobiKwik’s users currently make 10–12 purchases every month across diverse use cases such as recharge, bills, food, grocery, travel and cabs, shopping, entertainment, and more.

MobiKwik was the first to launch W2W (wallet-to-wallet) mobile money transfer service in August 2014. Available on Android, Windows, and iOS, MobiKwik wallet services today has 30 million wallet users. MobiKwik’s GMV has grown significantly by 250 per cent year-on-year for the last four years.

Market potential

According to a report by India Brand Equity Foundation, the rapidly growing E-commerce is expected to grow from $14 billion in 2015 to $220 billion in 2025. The number of mobile users has surpassed one billion as of October 2015.

Owing to the limited number of bank account holders and credit card owners, mobile wallet is the next logical option for making purchases at both offline and online stores.

According to India Mobile Wallet Market Forecast and Opportunities 2020, India is expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2020. 6Wresearch predicts that the value of India’s mobile wallet transactions will reach $11.5 billion by 2020. PayU Money, Paytm, Oxigen, and My Mobile Payments are considered to have captured the majority of the market share. The country is moving towards cashless economy, with more than 40 per cent of e-commerce transactions happening via mobile phones.

However, the introduction of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and Bharatpay may threaten the growth of mobile wallets in India. Going forward, the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) will govern all the retail payment systems in India.

MobiKwik