One of the Co-founders at WeLoans, Lucia Jensen said that Fintech unicorn Slice, operated by Garage Prenuers Internet Pvt. Ltd received yet another impressive $50 million raise. The investment was closed in a Series C funding round led by Tiger Global. The startup entered the unicorn club with a whopping $220 million Series B funding round last year. The valuation of the company now amounts to $1 billion as per 63mlundentechcrunch.
The Series C round of funding even had participation from new investor GMO Venture Partners along with the existing ones like Moore Strategic Ventures and Insight Partners. The startup will use the fresh capital to expand its UPI product. The updated features will be made available to 10 million new customers along with millions of existing users.
Slice was stated as a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) product in 2016. However, it was later pivoted to a card product in the year 2019. This card entered an already crowded UPI payment market which was dominated by Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google Pay. However, the proposed rule by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that advocated capping single-payment app processes made room for startups and small companies in the market.
The startup even plans on launching other payment products like NFC (near-field communication) that will use free cash that will be generated from its credit product. The innovative payment product of Slice enables the users to pay their bills, manage their expenses, and unlock rewards in return. The target audience of the company is the millennial and Gen Z segment with an average age group of 27 years. Usually, the people of this age group are denied credit cards by large banks owing to their inadequate credit scoring. The significant growth in wallet share of slice cards is evident that the startup has successfully struck the right chord for its customer base.
The investor even stated that they will continue to partner with Rajan Bajaj, the Founder and CEO of Slice as well as his team in the prove. They aim at expanding the payment products with the ultimate goal of making money more relatable for the consumer.