EtechAces Marketing and Consulting, fintech platform PolicyBazaar’s upper hand, has raised fresh funding of Rs 356.6 crore from the existing investor, SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate. Yashish Dahiya, the founder of Policy Bazaar, stated that the investment would function as a mix of primary and secondary deals.
The company allotted 7,144 preference shares at a nominal value of Rs 100 with a premium of Rs 49.9 lakh per share to SVF Python II (Cayman) Limited, one of the units of SoftBank.
Prior to this, SoftBank had led a $200 million Series F funding round in PolicyBazaar with participation from existing investor InfoEdge. PolicyBazaar has raised a total of $650 million to date.
Yashish Dahiya, Founder & CEO of PolicyBazaar, recently stated that its strategy to raise capital from investors like SoftBank & others, which infused huge capital, was ‘misguided’ & a ‘mistake’ that led to losses in the company. He added that PolicyBazaar invested heavily in ads, which didn’t convert into customers.
Losses & Layoffs
PolicyBazaar (1) is an online finance platform founded by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal, and Avaneesh Nirjar in 2008, which allows its users to browse and apply for life insurance and other insurance options.
The platform earlier claimed to have over 100 million visitors yearly and record sales of nearly 300,000 transactions a month. The platform also operates lending marketplace PaisaBazaar and health tech platform DocPrime.
Paisa Bazaar was launched back in 2014 serves as a financial advisory platform that turned profitable in FY’17, but sadly, endured Rs 9.42 crore in losses a year later. Currently, due to the fall in demand for the lending industry, PaisaBazaar laid off 1,500 people in June.
Link : https://timesnext.com/softbank-invests-356-crore-fintech-platform-policybazaar/
Author :- Saumya Uniyal
July 15, 2020 at 05:11PM
TimesNext