True Balance Tops Up Series B, Raises $15 Mn From Softbank Ventures Korea, Others

Gurugram and Korea-based mobile balance management service app True Balance has raised about $15 Mn (INR 100 Cr) in its Series B round of funding.

True Balance was launched by Balance Hero in India in 2014. Balance Hero is a startup founded in 2014 by Cheol-won Lee. As per a company statement, True Balance crossed 10 Mn downloads in July last year and, currently, it has about 30 Mn downloads.

Talking about the new round of funding Cheol-won Lee, CEO of Balance Hero said, “The additional funding will help us spur our business growth even further.  True Balance has been growing exponentially passing the 30 Mn download mark, targetting 100 Mn by the end of this year. We have also recently introduced the ‘one-click recharge feature’ to dramatically improve the convenience of mobile life.”

This round saw participation from existing investor SoftBank Ventures Korea, along with new investors including IMM Investment, Mega Investment, Korea Development Bank, and Capstone Partners.

Gyu Hak (Greg) Moon, the president and CEO of SoftBank Ventures Korea said, “The most impressive investment of the previous year was Balance hero”. Moreover, he added, “Within the first year of investment, there was 3,000% growth in app downloads, and this denotes the company’s growth. Due to the rapid expansion of the Indian market, the company’s estimated potential seems to be even greater.”

As per a recent report by Google and the Boston Consulting Group, India currently ranks number two in the world with over 1 Bn mobile subscriptions. Of this, approximately 240 Mn consumers use smartphones and this base is projected to increase to over 520 Mn by 2020.

True Balance converts a text message with available balance to infographics so that the users can easily check the balance, purchase a prepaid account, recharge their balance and track data usage. This technology is available for prepaid mobile phone users, who use services from nine telecommunication providers in 22 telecommunication circles in India. Recently, it has also added a new recharge feature and reward ads service.

As per a company statement, the additional round of funding comes funding comes just eight months since Balance Hero raised a Series A investment in April 2016 from Softbank Ventures Korea and other VCs.