SME focused neo-banking platform, Open, has raised $100 million in a Series C round. The funding was led by Temasek and saw participation from Google and SBI Investment, venture capital firm from Japan. Existing investors, Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital, also participated in the round.
Founded in 2017, Open offers a neo-banking platform that combines all the tools used by small businesses and integrates it with the business current account. Today, the Open platform powers close to 2 million SMEs and processes over $20 billion in annualized transactions. The platform also adds over 90,000 SMEs every month, making it the fastest growing, SME focused neo-banking platform globally.
Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Open on this transaction.
Founded by serial entrepreneurs Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko and Ajeesh Achuthan, along with ex-TaxiforSure CFO, Deena Jacob, Open plans to use the funding to further strengthen and accelerate its new product lines--Zwitch, and Banking Stack.
Zwitch is Open's embedded finance platform and BankingStack, the cloud native SME banking platform for financial institutions, which is currently deployed across 15+ banks in India.
Anish Achuthan, CEO, Open said, “Over the last 4 years, we’ve grown from strength to strength to be the fastest growing SME neo-banking platform globally. Our product offerings have helped close to 2 million SMEs in the Indian market and we’re just getting started. In the coming months, we look to expand our product range in embedded finance and enterprise banking. We also look to cater to over 5 million SMEs by August 2022.”
Karan Sharma, Executive Director & Co-Head, Digital and Technology Investment Banking at Avendus Capital added, “Open is democratizing business banking and finance by transforming the way SMEs conduct business through its all-in-one platform curated for their needs. The company is revolutionising the landscape on the back of a strong product, deep partnerships and an exceptional platform. The full stack nature of the offering enables deep competitive moats against the piecemeal solutions by competitors across the fintech spectrum.”