Mumbai-based payments gateway BillDesk received undisclosed amount of investment from global payments technology company Visa to develop new product lines for its payments and loyalty businesses and also expand its domain to other parts of the world.
In a media statement, Visa noted that the investment is not expected to have any direct bearing on its existing Indian business. The development comes after reports of June 2018, which said that Visa may lead a fresh funding round of $250 million for BillDesk, at a valuation of $1.5-2 billion.
BillDesk was founded in 2000 by three former Arthur Andersen executives — M N Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Karthik Ganapathy. It is one of the rare profitable internet companies in India, which processes payments worth almost $50 billion every year and leads the charts for online bill payments.
“Having worked with BillDesk’s founders over the years, the Visa leadership has been consistently impressed with their vision, market knowledge and execution capabilities, as well as alignment on values. This investment further reinforces our long-term commitment to India’s digital payments growth story,” said Chris Clark, Asia Pacific Regional President, Visa.
The move is part of Visa’s strategy to make partnerships with major payment gateways in the country to grow its business in India. Previouly, Visa had made investments in Paidy, Behalf, Marqeta, Payworks, Klarna, LoopPay (acquired by Samsung), Square and Stripe, among others.
