Unicorn India, Recruit fund fintech startup Open

BENGALURU: Fintech startup Open, which offers a digital banking service for small businesses in collaboration with banks, has raised a pre-series A funding round led by Unicorn India Ventures and Recruit Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of the Recruit Group of Japan. While the company did not disclose the deal size, industry sources said the round was about $2 million.

Existing investors ISME-ACE, managed by the family office of Yes Bank chief Rana Kapoor’s daughters, and BetterCapital AngelList syndicate also participated in the round.

This marks the latest funding by Recruit Group, which recently also backed lending marketplace Rubique. The funding came through its investment subsidiary RSP India Fund LLC.


Open launched its product last year, after receiving an angel round from PayU India’s Amrish Rau and Jitendra Gupta. The company also raised a round in December from the PayU executives as well as TaxiforSure founder Apremaya Radhakrishnan, Chiranth Patil of BetaPlus Ventures, as well as Archana Priyadarshini of Unicorn India Ventures and BetterCapital AngelList Syndicate.

The company provides banking solutions to small business in partnership with seven banks, which include current account, payment collections and reconciliation of transactions.

With the new funds, the startup will launch new products around expense management and joint products on SME lending with banks and NBFCs, CEO Anish Achuthan told ET.

“Neo-banking, or banking as a service, is finding increasing interest from customers, banks and financial institutions. This is already a growing trend in Europe,” Achuthan said.

Achuthan and his cofounder wife Mabel Chacko had previously founded Zwitch, which was acquired by CitrusPay in September 2015. Prior to Open, Anish was VP ( New Initiatives) and Business Heading at CitrusPay and PayU. Mabel was heading marketing and SMB acquisition for CitrusPay and PayU.

“Open’s business model of extending traditional banking services through digital route is a unique proposition within fintech and this prompted us to lead the round,” Archana Priyadarshini, partner, Unicorn India Ventures, said in a statement.