Instamojo targets $1 billion in transactions by 2019

Bengaluru: Instamojo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a payment platform that caters to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), launched two new products on Tuesday, and said it was targeting $1 billion in gross transaction values by the end of 2018-19 from $200 million currently.

The two new products, MojoXpress and MojoCapital, are part of the company’s larger strategy of becoming a one-stop service provider to the MSME sector, with an increasing number of these firms turning to digital marketing and selling. The company plans to expand its customer base to one million merchants by 2018-19.

Instamojo also recently completed its Series B round of funding, company executives said, but declined to divulge details. Both existing and new investors participated in the round, they added.

Instamojo had raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series B funding from Japanese payments firm AnyPay last August. Instamojo’s investors include Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and 500 Startups, among others.

While MojoXpress will provide companies with logistic services, MojoCapital will provide small loans to companies. The company has partnered with logistics companies, including FedX and Delhivery, for MojoXpress, and Yes Bank among others, for MojoCapital. Merchants can access its MojoXpress, essentially a shipping service, on the Instamojo app store.

The company will charge customers an interest rate of 25 basis points for loans it provides under MojoCapital. Under the product, the company plans to give merchants byte-sized micro credit called Sachet Loans, aimed at regularising cash flows and sustaining daily operations.

Instamojo was founded in 2012 as a payment gateway for MSMEs. Over the years, it evolved into an e-commerce platform to help merchants sell their products. “Even when we started, we knew we would eventually move towards becoming a one-stop shop for small and medium entrepreneurs,” said Sampad Swain, Instamojo’s founder and chief executive officer.

The company currently has an user base of over 500,000 merchants, of which around two-thirds are based in rural India.

Instamojo competes with names such as Aye Finance, Capital Float, Namaste Credit, and Lendingkart in the SME lending space, and those such as Razorpay, CCAvenue, CitrusPay, and PayUbiz in the B2B focused payment services space.