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Mobile wallet Company MobiKwik will go in for fresh capital mop up of $50-100 million in next three months, its Founder and Chief Executive Officer Bipin Preet Singh has said.
“We have started the process for the next round. We are looking at $ 50-100 million and close it in next three months. We will approach both existing and new investors”, Singh told Business Line in an interview.
This will help MobiKwik emerge as India’s largest independent mobile payments company, he said.
The next round of capital mop up will be over and above the $25 million that MobiKwik had raised in April this year in a series B round led by Tree Line Asia.
The April round saw participation from Cisco Investments, American Express and Sequoia Capital (an existing investor).
As on date, there are 20 million users and about 30,000 retailers who make use of MobiKwik’s payment solution.
The aspiration is to grow this to 50 million users and 1 lakh retailers by end March this fiscal, Singh said.
Payments Bank
Singh said he was not too disappointed about Reserve Bank of India (RBI) not granting payments bank licence to MobiKwik.
“We were expecting (the licence). I am not too disappointed. It’s going to be a matter of time and may not be too long before we get it”, he said.
“This (not getting the licence) does not affect our execution plan. All the new services we are looking to provide... we are trying to do it through partnerships”.
Singh said that the future of MobiKwik was to go more into financial services.
He also said that the next area of growth for mobile wallet companies like MobiKwik will come from loyalty programmes run by retail majors and innovations around it.
Metro top up
In a month from now, customers could use MobiKwik mobile wallet to top up their Metro rail cards in Delhi and Mumbai.
This top up facility is going to be the first level and more benefits could flow going forward using the mobile wallet, Singh said.
“Government could be a huge partner in promoting electronic payments in the country”, he said.
Recently, Bengaluru authorities allowed payment of water bills using MobiKwik wallets.
Srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in
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