Slice has turned India’s newest unicorn after the fintech startup raised $220 million at the valuation is over $1 billion. The capital-raising was done as part of Slice’s Series B investment round managed by New York-based investment firms Tiger Global and Insight Partners.
The round also witnessed assistance from fresh and current investors such as Sunley House Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Anfa, Gunosy, 8i and Blume Ventures. Flipkart founder Binny Bansal, along with other notable angels, also took part in the round.
Slice is the 41st Indian startup to attain unicorn status this year. A unicorn is a privately-held startup with a valuation of $1 billion or higher.
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Slice, maintained by Bengaluru-based GaragePrenuers Internet Pvt. Ltd, is the 11th fintech startup to become a unicorn this year. With this round, the company has raised around $250 million in equity funding so far.
Slice had raised $20 million in June as a part of an investment round started by existing investors Blume Ventures and Gunosy Capital.
Slice intends to use proceeds from the freshest fundraise to grow its current lines of business, invest in newer products, and expand its engineering and design functions. The organization will also use a portion of the new capital to fund its non-banking financial company (NBFC) arm and scale its loan book.
What is Slice Supercard?
Slice enables users to pay bills, manage expenses and unlock prizes. It is centred on new-age millennials and Gen Z, with an ordinary age group of 27, who have been mainly refused credit cards by big banks due to weak credit scoring around this demographic.
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The company allots credit and payment cards, ‘Slice Super Card’, with Visa and SBM Bank India Ltd, permitting them to build credit scores and win rewards and discounts from payments.
“At Slice, we believe that we have built a solid business model and will focus our energies now into growing and scaling the platform. We have been prudent with our business so far and burnt $4.5 million (in capital) over five years. A part of the capital from this funding will be invested in our NBFC, as we need to have our own skin in the game, rather than raising debt alone. The remainder will be utilized towards launching new products and scaling the team,” Rajan Bajaj, founder and chief executive officer at Slice, stated in an interview.
Slice is currently working on including unified payments interface (UPI)-based payments on its app, besides credit card issuances, Bajaj spoke.
This year alone, Slice has ramped up its monthly credit card issuances tenfold, from 20,000 cards in January to close to 200,000 cards in October.
