Snapmint raises USD 21 million in mix of equity, debt fund

New Delhi: Fintech startup Snapmint on Monday said it has raised USD 21 million, about Rs 160 crore, in an equal mix of equity and debt from existing investors as well as institutional investors.

The equity funding was led by Prudent Investment Managers CEO and CIO Prashasta Seth.

The funding round also saw participation from Kae Capital, 9 Unicorns, Anicut Capital, Negen Capital, Snapmint co-founder Anil Gelra said in a statement.

While the equity round saw participation from marquee and existing investors, the participants in the debt funding round included institutional investors led by debt platform Northern Arc Capital and high net-worth individuals who made investments through non-convertible debentures.

Buy-now-pay-later focussed firm Snapmint intends to deploy the funds to expand its merchant network both online and offline to power the purchases of 550 million PAN card holding Indian consumers, the statement said.

Gelra said Snapmint is a non-banking financial company, which is compliant with all digital lending guidelines of RBI. It has been able to leverage the infrastructure changes the government has brought about in the ecosystem post-Covid.

"With digital KYCs and account aggregator infrastructure being introduced along with the growth in digital payments powered by UPI, we see strong tailwinds in customer adoption of Snapmint payments. We are excited to collaborate with prominent investors and industry players to empower young consumers in India," he said.

Snapmint claims to have grown 6 times in 2022, largely driven by over 300 D2C brands adopting Snapmint instalment payments, and its app has been downloaded by 8 million consumers in India.

"We believe that there is huge potential in the installment BNPL segment. In India, there are about 22?25 million installment BNPL customers. The sector is a high-yielding one as it is predicted to expand by an astounding 11 times to USD 43 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate of 80 per cent. Snapmint is a unique affordable installment BNPL player and has already created a niche for itself," Northern Arc CEO Ashish Mehrotra said.