· The funding round has been co-led by Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India and with US-based venture fund QED Investors also participating, alongside existing backers, such as Matrix Partners India
· Jupiter aims to onboard approximately 2 million users by December 2022
Mumbai and Bengaluru-based neobanking startup Jupiter has announced that it has raised $86 million from investors in its Series C round, and in the process, being valued at about $711 million.
The latest round has been co-led by Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India and with US-based venture fund QED Investors also participating, alongside existing backers, such as Matrix Partners India. It also comes just a little over a month after the two-year-old company came out of beta mode, and officially launched its services.
Tiger Global joins an illustrious group of investors that have already professed strong faith in Jupiter’s vision and that of its founder and chief executive Jitendra Gupta and his team. Existing backers of Jupiter include Brazil-based Nubank, Global Founders Capital, Mirae Assets Venture, Addition Ventures, Tanglin VC, Greyhound, 3one4 Capital and Beenext, among others.
Jupiter has already attracted over 0.5 million users within a very short span during its early access launch in July. Jupiter has partnered with Federal Bank to provide bank accounts to consumers.
Commenting on the milestone fundraise, Mr. Jitendra Gupta – Founder & CEO of Jupiter said, “We feel that we are in a very unique time wherein consumers are adopting technology faster than expected. Consumers are looking for a place where they can get better experience for their finances rather than just a plain vanilla banking app. Jupiter is exactly focused on providing better personal finance experience to consumers in a very personalized and contextual way. We are thrilled to welcome new investors such as Tiger Global and having more faith from our existing investors such as Sequoia Capital India and QED who have chosen to increase their interest in the Company.”
Commenting on the fund-raise, Alex Cook, Partner at Tiger Global said, “We’re excited to back the Jupiter team as they build a next-gen consumer banking experience for India. We heard very positive feedback on Jupiter when we surveyed customers and we think they are just getting started.”
The company had last announced the closure of its $50 million Series B round in August 2021, which had valued the company at about $ 290 million at the time. Prior to that, it had raised $25 million across its Seed and Series A rounds, while still operating in stealth mode.
“Sequoia Capital India has partnered with Jiten in every venture that he has started because the firm believes in his execution capabilities, resilience, and the ability to play the long game to re-imagine the future of financial services.” said Mohit Bhatnagar, MD, Sequoia India.
Jupiter will use the proceeds to further build its team and technology platform, while also preparing to launch a slew of cutting edge, consumer-facing products that have been designed to revolutionise personal banking for the new-age Indian consumer, a segment that is getting increasingly technology proficient, but still continues to face and deal with archaic banking infrastructure.
Sandeep Patil, partner at QED Investors said, “We are thrilled to partner with Jiten. He brings to bear past entrepreneurial success and a distinguished standing in the fintech and banking community. We are impressed by the roaring customer appeal of what he and his team are building at Jupiter and their multi-decade vision to address financial needs of Indian consumers.
“Executed right, digital banking services hold tremendous potential in India for increasing wealth and improving financial well-being of the middle-class. Jupiter is on a sure-footed journey to realise this potential.”
Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India said, “Jupiter is off to a fast start in the nascent NeoBank space in India and we’re privileged to be early backers here. Their focus on consumer journeys, innovating continuously on product while maintaining the highest compliance standards with their bank partners sets them apart. We welcome QED and Tiger to the partnership & look forward to the next phase of growth.”
Jupiter’s turbo-charged growth has been built on the back of Indian consumers, who live in a world where they have reviews, ratings, and recommendations, and are beginning to shift toward better experiences. The 21st century consumer wants a smarter way of banking rather than feature-driven banking.
Having received a phenomenal response from early users thus far, Jupiter is targeting having approximately 2 million users by December 2022. It is currently seeing 5,000 to 6,000 new users signing up each day, and has also recorded deposits of over Rs 100 crore in October earlier this year.
Founded by fintech pioneer Gupta in 2019, Jupiter is a 100% digital bank that aims to fix what’s broken in the traditional banking system, through a customer-obsessed mentality and continuous innovation, built on the back of a strong technology stack.
One of Jupiter’s first offerings is a savings account bundled with features that aim to simplify money management. The product was co-created with a strong community of users that suggested features they wanted in a banking app. The long-term vision of the company includes, making consumer banking ubiquitous, at the same time, a delightful experience, while also positioning Jupiter as a day to day finance app for consumers.
Jupiter is the second venture founded by Gupta, who had earlier co-founded, built and then sold payments platform Citrus Pay to Naspers-owned global payments giant PayU for $130 million in 2016, the largest fintech M&A transaction to have been recorded in India at the time.
The 40 year-old qualified chartered accountant, then went on to be MD at PayU India, and also went on to start BNPL category in India through LazyPay, during his stint with the Naspers-owned payments giant.
