India-Based Banking Startup Open Raises $30M To Help SMBs

A “neo-bank” startup called Open and based in Bangalore has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round, according to a report by TechCrunch.

Tiger Global led the funding round, and Tanglin Venture Partners, AngelList Syndicate, Speedinvest and 3one4 Capital all participated. The company is now valued at $150 million and has raised $37 million so far.

The India-based startup acts like a bank but has services to aid small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) specifically. In India, many SMBs have trouble with accounting, bookkeeping and payroll, and Open has a platform that automates many of those necessary tasks.

It also helps to keep track of money, and where it goes.

Anish Achuthan, founder and CEO of Open, said the platform helps to ease the minds of SMB owners.

“We have a small business owner from Ahmedabad on our platform. They see 59 transactions from their customers in its bank account every few hours. Prior to using our service, they were juggling all day to figure out where these transactions originated from or went to,” he said. “Because on their bank statement, they only see one-line description of a transaction’s detail.”

He added that the services provided by Open are not generally available to SMBs through banks, or if they are, exorbitant fees are charged. Open has more than 100,000 customers, and Achuthan said the company process around $5 billion in transactions yearly. There’s also an average of 20,000 new clients coming on board every month.

Achuthan said he wanted to create Open to help the business community, “but building a bank in India comes with its own set of regulatory challenges, so we looked at what FinTech startups were doing in other parts of the world for inspiration,” he said.

The startup has 85 employees and will use the money to expand with more products, workers and services. The company plans to launch a credit card for SMBs with a 30-day interest-free credit line for backed startups. The next goal for signups is 1 million.