Pay-Later Fintech Startup ShopSe Bags $6.1 Mn To Grow Its Lender Partnerships

Buy now pay later(BNPL) startup ShopSe has raised $6.1 Mn as a part of its Series A funding from BEENEXT, Chiratae Ventures and White Venture Capital, the VC firm is backed by Amrish Rau and Jitendra Gupta. 

With the fresh capital, ShopSe wants to take its service to 150,000 more retailers and grow lender partnerships. The Mumbai-based startup also wants to invest in building a quality team, further enhancing platform capabilities.

Former PayU employees Pallav Jain, Abhishek Nimonkar and Yagnesh Desai started ShopSe in 2020. ShopSe’s pay-later marketplace offers instant customisable credit solutions at point of purchase. Its marketplace brings lenders and retailers together to offer EMI solutions for customers in online and offline space. It offers credit solutions at the purchase point without any documentation, rather by examining credit eligibility digitally. 

The startup claims to have more than 120 brands as partners including Voltas, Asus, Whirlpool, Bluestar, Daikin, Realme and enjoys a presence of more than 35,000 retailers across India. Some of  its banking or non-banking financial company (NBFC) partners include HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank, Axis Bank and IIFL.

“With the help of our lending partners, we have been able to bring change for 35,000 retailers serving customers in 500+ locations across the country. We are committed to solving for convenient affordability at point of purchase by working with our partners to build the right digital offerings for the market,” Pallav Jain, cofounder and CEO of ShopSe, said.

The startup raised $5.5 Mn in seed funding led by Chiratae Ventures and BEENEXT last year. Since the previous fund raise, ShopSe team has grown from 10 members to 300 plus team members, said the startup. 

“We are constantly looking for changemakers in the fintech landscape. ShopSe’s accelerating product innovation, expanding footprint and excellent customer feedback has strengthened our conviction about their vision of making shopping affordable for everyday purchase,” Hero Choudhary, managing partner of BEENEXT said.

ShopSe is trying to capture a place in the growing buy now pay later (BNPL) market, albeit with a different model. The BNPL space in India is dominated by pure play startups including Simpl, Zestmoney, MobiKwik, as well as names such as Amazon Pay, Ola Postpaid, among others.

According to a recent report from YouGov, Indian consumers show a higher tendency to use BNPL products in the near future compared to other markets. Around 28% of Indian consumers plan to avail the BNPL services within April 2023, as compared to the global average of 17%.

India’s overall fintech market is expected to reach a $1.3 Tn size by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 31% during 2021-2025, as per an Inc42 report. Further, lending tech is likely to account for 47% share of the market. 

The BNPL space in India has seen investors’ interest and acquisitions in the past few months. Merchant solutions platform Mosambee had acquired BNPL-focused fintech startup Benow earlier this year. 

In the funding space, the segment too did fairly well. Examples include: Mumbai-based fintech startup Snapmint raised $9 Mn; Chennai-based IppoPay raised $2.1 Mn early this year to venture into BNPL, along with focusing on other verticals. Among others, Bengaluru-based lending platform Pocketly raised $3 Mn in March and New Delhi-based BNPL startup SaveIN also raised $4 Mn last month.