Banking tech start-up Zeta on Monday joined the ranks of unicorn companies after it raised $250 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at a valuation of $1.45 billion. Sodexo also participated as an additional minority investor in the round that is part of the company’s series C investment.
The Indian start-up sector has now added 14 unicorns this year.
Zeta plans to deploy the capital to fuel its growth in India, US and Europe. Bulk of the proceeds will be used to scale its operations, team, and platform to meet the demands of an expanding customer base, it said in a statement.
Founded in April 2015 by Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati, the San Francisco and Bengaluru-based Zeta provides modern credit, debit processing, BNPL (buy now pay later), core banking and mobile experiences to banking and fintech companies. It caters to over 10 banks and 25 fintech firms across eight countries, including Sodexo, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank.
“Most banks are using decades-old software built when Mainframes and Cobol were in vogue. They have been slow to innovate and provide poor user experiences. With Zeta, FIs can leverage a modern, cloud native platform and improve speed to market, agility, cost to income ratio and user experience,” Turakhia, the CEO and co-founder, said.
About 61% of financial institution executives believe investment in newer technologies is the most important measure they must take to improve their customer experience, Zeta said, citing a study by Alite Group. Zeta claims that banks across the globe have increased income, improved customer engagement and reduced fraud by leveraging the company’s omni stack.
The company has a presence in North America, LATAM, UK, Europe and Asia. Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor on this transaction.