BharatPe Logs Record Growth, Eyes IPO In Next 24 Months: CEO Suhail Sameer

BharatPe, which allows shop owners to make digital payments through QR codes, has now expanded in 225 cities and has over 80 lakhs merchants onboard, said its CEO

New Delhi: BharatPe has clocked record growth in the financial year ended March 31 and is on track to break-even, said the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Suhail Sameer.

In a report by the PTI, Sameer mentioned that fintech firm will get listed on stock exchanges in the next 18-24 months.

BharatPe, which allows shop owners to make digital payments through QR codes, has now expanded in 225 cities (more than 2x growth from last financial year) and has over 80 lakhs merchants onboard (up from 50 lakhs in FY21 that ended on March 31, 2021).

Sameer said, “Transaction value (TPV) has grown 2.5x year-on-year to $16 billion in 2021-22 (April 2021 to March 2022). POS (point of sale) business is also 2x up from last year with over 1.25 lakh POS machines deployed. We do $4 billion transactions on it, as of March.”

According to the report, number of merchants who availed loans has increased to 3 lakh from 1.6 lakh a year ago. "We facilitated $650 million of loans last year (FY22),” he said.

PostPe, the buy-now-pay-later product the company launched five months ago, is doing a million transactions a month and $50 million a month TPV.

“Overall from the company point of view, revenue has grown nearly four times y-o-y. And we will exit the year at a $110 million annualised run rate as compared to $31-32 million (last year)," he said. "From $6 million, we have become $110 million in 18-20 months."

In the current financial year, BharatPe is looking at an 85 per cent jump in TVP to $30 billion, scaling up loans facilitated to $2 billion.

"Last 2-3 years were sort of network expansion, next 2-3 years we will continue to grow the network but sort of double down on lending. PostPe will be scaled up 4x — from $50 million TPV to $200 million TPV. Seems like a big number (but) I am confident we will get there."

Revenue in the current financial year is seen growing to $300 million, and merchant base increasing to 1.2 crore. "Currently, we facilitate loans worth around Rs 800 crore a month. Want to take that to Rs 2,050 crore a month by March 2023," he said.

The CEO also added that the board will take a call on what to do with the money allegedly defrauded by former managing director and co-founder Ashneer Grover.