BNPL Startup Snapmint Raises $21 Mn Debt & Equity Funding

Mumbai-based fintech startup Snapmint on Monday (October 17) said it has raised $21 Mn in a mix of equity and debt. The equity round was led by Prashasta Seth, CEO and CIO of Prudent Investment Managers, while it also saw participation from both existing and new investors like Kae Capital, 9 Unicorns, Anicut Capital, and Negen Capital. 

On the other hand, the debt round saw participation of institutional investors led by Northern Arc Capital, and several high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), who made investments through non-convertible debentures.

The  BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) platform plans to deploy the fresh funds in expanding its online and offline merchant network to power the purchases of 550 Mn Indian PAN card holders.

The fundraise comes months after Snapmint raised $9 Mn in its Series A round from several marquee investors and industry leaders led by Seth in March this year.

Founded in 2017 by Nalin Agrawal, Anil Gelra, and Abhineet Sawa, Snapmint aims to democratise credit access. Snapmint’s platform enables customers to shop products across ranges such as electronics, fashion, and more, in instalments. As a non-banking financial company (NBFC), the startup claims that it is compliant with the digital lending guidelines of the Reserve Bank of Indi (RBI).

“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,” Snapmint cofounder Gelra said.

In a statement, the startup said that it has grown 6X in 2022, largely driven by the growth of D2C brands in the country as over 300 such brands have adopted Snapmint instalment payments. Almost 8 Mn Indian consumers have downloaded Snapmint app, the startup claimed.

Ashish Mehrotra, CEO of Northern Arc, said that there is a huge potential in the instalment BNPL segment in India with about 22 Mn-25 Mn total customers in the segment. 

“The sector is a high-yielding one as it is predicted to expand by an astounding 11 times to $43 Bn by 2025, at a CAGR of 80%,” said Mehrotra, adding that Snapmint’s portfolio quality and scalable smooth underwriting of young consumers is impressive.

As per an Inc42 report, digital lending in India is forecast to become a $1.3 Tn market opportunity by 2030 from $270 Bn in 2022, growing at a CAGR of 22% during the period. 

Following several complaints against various digital lending and BNPL services providers in the country, the RBI released its first set of guidelines for businesses in the space in August this year.

Though the BNPL sector is growing at a rapid pace, the average funding ticket size in the overall fintech sector declined by 58% year-on-year (YoY) to $15.3 Mn in Q3 2022 due to the ongoing funding winter.