BharatPe’s products and business approach have recently piqued my interest, and here’s my view on it.
BharatPe is a digital payments one-stop shop. According to BharatPe co-founder Shashvat Nakrani, the goal of creating an app like BharatPe was to solve the problem of merchants/SMEs accepting digital payments without sacrificing profits. Because no payment gateway charged less than 1% commission, Shashvat Nakrani, who was working on a startup idea in 2017–18, decided to use UPI to create a digital payments solution that would eliminate all fees on receiving payments, build a merchant network, and monetize through other financial products.
Products
Interoperable QR code for UPI payments
Bharat Swipe (POS machine) for card acceptance
Small business financing
How BharatPe Makes money
BharatPe is in the middle of a storm, but what is the business model of the startup? BharatPe is a B2B firm whose key service is a QR code that allows retailers to accept UPI payments, which account for 80% of the company’s $16 billion in yearly total payment volumes (TPV). BharatPe has an 8% monthly market share in person-to-merchant (P2M) payments at the end of FY21. Merchants can use the company’s point-of-sale equipment to take card payments. Payments, on the other hand, result in slim profit margins for the organisation. The company’s merchant and consumer lending solutions generate income. Within three months of its inception in October 2021, its BNPL product PostPe has a TPV of $321 million.
BharatPe Future Scope
As one of the top unicorn startups, Bharatpe has already proven their worth to both main and secondary investors.Bharatpe, which has had a fantastic journey thus far, is today valued at almost $900 million (69,24,86,10,000 INR). To top it off, the firm awarded 18 of its angel investors a lucrative exit with an 80% return, bringing the world’s attention to itself in just two years!
And that’s not all: the business also gave its secondary investors a huge return of Rs 102 crore, compared to Rs 1.9 crore to its first round of investors.
My Conclusion for BharatPe
BharatPe has strong angel and secondary investors on board, and the team is committed to helping small businesses develop digitally. BharatPe is growing at a rapid pace, attracting global attention with each new product.
In a recent interview, BharatPe’s co-founder stated that they will expand their loan PostPe from 350 million to 750 million, with the proceeds going towards bringing new small business-focused products to market.
BharatPe has been embroiled in several scandals, but with a recent 80 percent return to investors and a large client base, the company is poised for exponential expansion in the future years.