Perfios, a Bengaluru-based fintech startup, has raised over $70 million in a Series C round of funding from existing investors Warburg Pincus LLC and Bessemer Venture Partners at a unicorn valuation.
In the most recent funding round, Perfios did not reveal its valuation. The fresh round, according to VCCircle, values the company at $4.05 billion. The news was first reported by the news website Inc42, which speculated the company’s valuation at over $2 billion.
In an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) hosted on February 10, 2022, the startup opted to issue Warburg Pincus and Bessemer India Holdings a total of 4,16,336 Series C CCPS. The valuation was determined by multiplying 2,40,87,250 post-issuance fully diluted equity shares by a share price of Rs 12,610. According to the regulatory filing, it also issued 495,069 Optionally Convertible Redeemable Preference Shares (OCRPS) at a price of Rs 1,166 apiece.
Warburg Pincus LLC through its affiliate Pear Valley Investment Limited has invested around $55 million (~Rs 409.22 crore), while Bessemer India has invested $14.8 million (~Rs 111.6 crore). In a regulatory filing, Perfios stated that it will use the fresh infusion of capital to expand its operations, including capital expenditure, financing acquisitions, and working capital requirements. In addition, the company seeks to raise around $40 million in debt funding this year.
The latest investment comes almost 27 months after it bagged $50 million in its Series B round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Warburg Pincus. Several investors were said to have exited the firm at the time.
Perfios, founded in 2009 by Debasish Chakraborty and V R Govindarajan, is a Credit Decisioning and analytics company that operates in both the B2B and B2C categories. The company claims to be able to extract, categorize, and analyze thousands of data sets in real-time, enabling financial institutions in making effective lending decisions.
It claims to categorize more than 500 million transactions every month, support 1,700 data formats, and be backed by 735 institutions. In addition, the startup recently acquired Karza Technologies Pvt. Ltd. for $80 million. The startup claims to have an international footprint across 18 countries, including Bangladesh, Ireland, Indonesia, South Africa, the Czech Republic, and the United Arab Emirates.
In the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2021, Perfios generated Rs 72.5 crore in sales alone. Its revenue from sales has decreased from the previous financial year when it recorded Rs 74 crore from sales in FY20. It posted an overall revenue in FY21 was Rs 74.5 crore, down from Rs 77.5 crore in FY20. However, the startup’s expenses jumped to Rs 107.4 crore in FY21 from Rs 104 crore in FY20 due to low income. Perfios’ employee benefits expense also dropped significantly from Rs 70.5 crore in FY20 to Rs 60 crore in FY21, its other expenses increased to Rs 43.5 crore in FY21. The startup’s loss after tax in FY21 was Rs 33 crore, up from Rs 26.8 crore in FY20.
