BNPL platform Snapmint bags $21 mn in debt and equity funding

Fintech continues to be one of the hottest segments of the new economy despite a definite slowdown in startup funding this year. The latest to pocket some dollars is Mumbai-based Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) platform Snapmint, which has raised $21 million in a mix of debt and equity. 

The equity round was led by Prudent Investment Managers CEO & CIO Prashasta Seth. It also saw participation of 9 Unicorns, Anicut Capital, Negen Capital, Livspace founder Ramakant Sharma, among other angel investors. 

Commenting on the investment, Prashasta Seth, CEO and CIO of Prudent investment Managers said, “We are truly impressed by the team’s ability to underwrite young customers from Tier2/small towns instantly and seamlessly, which shows in the portfolio quality. This differentiates them from a vast majority of the other players in the space. We are proud to partner with Snapmint on this growth journey and look forward to powering the next revolution in digital payments and purchase financing.”

The debt funding, meanwhile, was led by Northern Arc Capital, with participation from undisclosed HNIs. “We believe that there is huge potential in the instalment BNPL segment. Snapmint is a unique affordable instalment BNPL player and has already created a niche for itself. We are impressed by the team's portfolio quality and their scalable smooth underwriting of young consumers,” Ashish Mehrotra, CEO of Northern Arc, said in a statement.

Snapmint plans to deploy the funds in expanding its offline and online merchant networks to offer instant credit to India’s 550 million PAN card holding customers. At present, the platform serves over 4 million customers — primarily from India’s small towns — across 27,000 pincodes. 

Nalin Agrawal, Co-founder of Snapmint, said, “We are excited to partner with marquee investors and industry leaders in our growth journey. This investment will boost our expansion plans as we look to grow our merchant partners 50x pan-India and bring a unique shopping experience to our customers. Our transaction-led underwriting models allow us to democratize access to credit, provide fair financial terms and give the freedom of choice to our consumers.”

Founded by IIT Bombay batchmates and serial entrepreneurs Nalin Agrawal, Anil Gelra, Abhineet Sawa and Rahul Agarwal, Snapmint aims to democratize access to credit for online shopping. It allows interest-free credit to customers at the time of purchase and lets them pay back the amount in small monthly installments. 

Besides helping consumers gain access to instant credit, Snapmint has also boosted sales of e-commerce platforms by almost 25 per cent by opening up an all-new shopper base for them. “Since Snapmint is an NBFC, which is compliant with all digital lending guidelines of RBI, it has been able to leverage the infrastructure changes the government has brought about in the ecosystem post Covid,” Anil Gelra, Co-founder of Snapmint, said in a statement.

Snapmint also claims to have grown 6X in 2022, primarily driven by uptick across 300+ D2C brands adopting its instalment payment option. Its app has been downloaded over 8 million times. India is estimated to have about 22–25 million BNPL customers, and the sector is projected to grow to $43 billion by 2025. Hence, the room for growth is clear. “With digital KYCs and Account Aggregator infrastructure being introduced along with the growth in digital payments powered by UPI, we see strong tailwinds in customer adoption of Snapmint payments,” Gelra added. 

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