Simpl, an India-based fintech platform, has raised a $40 million Series B round led by Valar Ventures and IA Ventures.
LFH Ventures and other internal investors also joined the round. The investment brings the total capital raised by the company to $83 million.
“Online checkout is built on a fragmented payment value chain that was created 60 years ago and has left the native-to-mobile retailers and consumers underserved. We built a fullstack checkout platform that gives merchants ultimate control of user experience and helps them build trust with consumers at checkout. Simpl is like a Khata or a Tab for online commerce. This intuitive user experience, built on the bedrock of trust, will enable a larger ecommerce market and will lead to greater adoption of mobile payments in India and the rest of the world,” said Simpl Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Nitya Sharma said in a statement.
Simpl is a cardless payment network with embedded 1-Tap Checkout, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) and Buyer Protection. With Simpl, online merchants provide consumers an easy, safe and intuitive way to buy. Its flagship product,1-tap Pay Later, enables consumers to buy with a tap and have all the purchases across retailers on the network aggregated into one bill that can be repaid once every 15 days.
Earlier this year, Simpl released two new features: Bill Box and Pay-in-3. To reduce the friction of managing recurring payments, Billbox ensures all utilities are paid automatically. To add greater flexibility for retailers and consumers, Simpl’s latest product “Pay-in-3” allows customers to buy what they love now and pay for it over three equal payments every month.
Over the past 18 months, Simpl has grown its monthly active merchants and its monthly active users by 10 times. Simpl works with over 7,000 category-leading online merchants including Zomato, MakeMyTrip, Big Basket, Jio Platform,1MG and Crocs.
“Simpl built the first payments network we’ve seen that treats small and medium merchants as true partners. It offers the BNPL, fast checkout and anti-fraud features that merchants need to compete in today’s market, at a transparent, fair price. We’re excited to see Simpl bring a new generation of consumers and commerce companies online in India, on a level playing field with incumbents,” said Jesse Beyroutey, Partner at IA Ventures.
Valar Ventures Partner James Fitzgerald also said India’s e-commerce market is at an inflection point and he believes Simpl’s solution is a key enabler in accelerating adoption of digital payments in e-commerce.
“It significantly improves consumer experience which is why it is quickly becoming a preferred partner for merchants. The team has shown great execution and we are excited to join their mission of democratizing e-commerce for all merchants big and small,” he added.
According to the statement, India is one of the fastest growing ecommerce markets in the world but 60 percent of all transactions are still done with Cash on Delivery, only 5 percent of the addressable market have a credit card, and 25 percent of all electronic payments fail on mobile (versus. less than 1 percent on Simpl). Simpl moves consumers away from cash, increases cart conversion by 45 percent and increases Average Order Value by 20 percent.
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