Visa invests in India-based B2B payments platform PayMate’s $25M round

PayMate, a Mumbai-based startup that helps businesses automate and digitize their payments, is raising $25 million in a new round, its founder said, as it looks to expand its presence within India and in international markets.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Ajay Adiseshann, founder and CEO of PayMate, said the startup has already raised a substantial amount of the $25 million it is eyeing in its Series D. These funds came from Recruit Strategic Partners, Brand Capital, Visa and existing investor Mayfair 101. Adiseshann said he expects the round to close in 60 days.

The 13-year-old startup, which had raised $18 million prior to the Series D, began its journey as a consumer-facing payments service. But it quickly shifted its attention to opportunities in the business-to-business payments market, Adiseshann said.

PayMate today develops and offers cloud-based solutions for SME and enterprise customers to help them manage invoices and payments from vendors and customers. It also works with Visa and issuing banks to offer crediting financial options to customers.

Last year, PayMate acquired Z2P Technologies, a startup that offers lending technologies, to bring a lending stack on its platform. It looks at transactional data on its platform to score SMEs and offer them credits from third-party lenders. PayMate also serves as a discounting marketplace, allowing large enterprises to electronically negotiate offers with SMEs.

In India, and the same is true of some other markets, small and medium businesses often struggle to secure financing options from major banks. “India is very collateral-based in financing. On our platform, we have the visibility of their transactional data,” he said. This helps establish transparency and trust between all the stakeholders.

The startup has more than 35,000 business customers that use its platform to process more than $5 billion in payments each year. It began operations in UAE earlier this year and will use the new capital to expand in Africa and parts of Europe, Adiseshann said.