L&L Partners guide Steadview Group in BharatPe funding
Since all parties desired a quick closure, the L&L Partners team had to quickly turnaround several iterations of the transaction documents, making it one of the fastest round closures for any start-up in India
Leading Indian law firm L&L Partners acted and advised Steadview Group in huge investment in Indian startup BharatPe.
The firm’s Corporate Structuring acted with Steadview Capital Mauritius Limited, ABG Capital and Steadview Capital Opportunities PCC Cell 0121-004 (collectively, Steadview Group), in the investment in the Series D round of funding of Resilient Innovations Private Limited (BharatPe) at a post-money valuation of approximately $900 Million (₹6,552 crore).
Under the Series D round of funding, BharatPe raised approximately $90 Million (₹655 crore) in primary fundraise and also ensured secondary exit for its angel investors and employees for a total amount of approximately $18 Million (₹131 crore).
The funding round was led by BharatPe’s existing investor Coatue Management, with the participation of other existing investors – Steadview Group, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Beenext, Amplo and Sequoia Capital.
The L&L team advised on all legal aspects of the investment – from advising on the review, negotiation, finalization and execution of the definitive transaction documents to the closing of the transaction.
The law firm had a daunting task at hand as the parties desired that the transaction be closed within a very short span of timeline post-signing. The team assisted the client, did a quick turnaround after several rounds of discussions with the company for ensuring that the transaction is consummated within desired timelines.
As an existing investor, L&L Partners had to advise and support Steadview Group in respect of all the stages of the transactions, including multiple rounds of negotiations and discussions with various stakeholders, including the Company. Given the multiplicity of investors and interests, the team had to quickly turn around several iterations of the transaction documents, making it one of the fastest round closures for any start-up in India.
BharatPe is engaged in the running of the online digital payments platform and provides services to offline retailers/merchants for payments, lending and other financial services. BharatPe is one of the largest B2B fintech lenders of India, facilitating over ₹200 crore of loans to its merchant partners every month through its NBFC partners.
The platform offers the merchants Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for inter-bank transactions across various payment wallets. It also acts as a networking platform for small and medium scale merchants to connect with other registered merchants and collaborate with them for the expansion of their businesses.
The transaction enables Steadview Group to establish its presence in a key market sector that is primed for growth in the years to come. The online digital payments sector is perceived as one of the biggest upcoming sectors in India. This deal would enable BharatPe to expand its market presence, given the competition that it faces with other digital payments platforms like Paytm, PhonePe and GooglePay. This in turn would deliver enhanced value for its investors, including the Steadview Group.
BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code, first zero MDR payment acceptance service and first UPI payment backed merchant cash advance service. In 2020, post-Covid, BharatPe also launched India’s only zero MDR card acceptance terminals – Bharat Swipe.
BharatPe has grown business 30 folds in 2019 and is already a leader in UPI offline transactions. BharatPe processes over $7 billion in annualized total payment value (TPV) on Unified Payments Interface, across 6 million merchants in 75 Indian cities.
The L&L Partners’ transaction team was led by the firm’s Partners Vaibhav Kakkar and Snigdhaneel Satpathy. They were supported by Associates Keshav Pareek, Mincy Mathew and Paayas Pandit.