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Business News/ Companies / News/  FreeCharge raises $80 million in new funds
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FreeCharge raises $80 million in new funds

The funding will be used for product innovations on mobile and building FreeCharge as a household brand, says CEO Alok Goel

The company, which has an existing customer base of more than 20 million, said mobile transactions on the Freecharge app have grown about 60 times in the last one year through 10 million app downloads.Premium
The company, which has an existing customer base of more than 20 million, said mobile transactions on the Freecharge app have grown about 60 times in the last one year through 10 million app downloads.

Bengaluru: FreeCharge, an online mobile recharging service, said it raised $80 million in Series C funding from existing and new investors. Valiant Capital Management and Tybourne Capital Management are the new investors, while existing investors include Sequoia Capital, RuNet and Sofina. In September last year, the company said it raised $33 million from Sequoia, Sofina and RuNet.

“This round of funding will be primarily used for product innovations on mobile, team expansion and building FreeCharge as a household brand," chief executive officer (CEO) Alok Goel said in a statement. The firm, which has an existing customer base of over 20 million, said mobile transactions on the Freecharge app have grown about 60 times in the last one year through 10 million app downloads.

FreeCharge, which gets 85% of its transactions from the mobile platform, recently launched a service to promote online shopping through its website and mobile platforms by giving cashback offers to shoppers who use the service to buy products on e-commerce sites. The Indian e-commerce market will reach $6 billion in 2015, a 70% increase over the 2014 revenue of $3.5 billion, according to research firm Gartner.

FreeCharge is an online mobile recharge site where users can recharge their prepaid mobile phones and data cards, and pay bills for their postpaid mobile phones. The company offers promotions or discounts every time a customer uses the platform for a recharge. These promotions are available for use on a variety of places such as restaurants, fast food chains and e-commerce websites.

Valiant Capital Management is a San Francisco-based hedge fund, while Tybourne Capital Management is based in Hong Kong. Sequoia Capital’s India investments include Justdial, Micromax, Mu Sigma, Quick Heal, Truecaller and Zomato among others. Sofina is a Belgium-based investment company listed on the Brussels Stock Exchange while RuNet is a Russia-based venture fund.

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Published: 06 Feb 2015, 09:12 AM IST
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