Zeta eyes presence in 30 countries in the next two fiscals
Zeta plans to expand to Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, and is eyeing presence also in Europe
BENGALURU : Banking technology startup Zeta is setting lofty expansion targets for itself as it looks to enter 30 countries over the next two fiscals and sets sights on newer verticals such as wealth management, its chief executive officer and co-founder, Bhavin Turakhia, told Mint.
Zeta joined India’s growing list of unicorns, when it raised its first institutional funding of $250 million from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 last month at a valuation of $1.45 billion.
The company now plans to increase its sales and marketing team from 50 members at present to 250 individuals as it looks to get 300 banks globally as clients over the next 18 months.
Zeta plans to expand its footprint in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, while also looking to establish its presence in Europe by entering countries such as Germany and France.
The startup is also setting sights on eastern Europe, the Middle East, including Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, and hopes to ramp up its presence in Southeast Asia, Japan, and other Asian countries over the next two fiscals. It will also look to enter the Africa market by 2023.
Zeta is present in eight geographies—India, North America, UK, Brazil, Philippines, Italy, Spain, and Vietnam—and serves close to 10 banks and 25 fintechs in these countries. In India, its clientele includes HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, and Yes Bank.
Founded in April 2015, Zeta provides technology infrastructure to banks allowing them to create digital products that enhance user experience. Through its white-label platform, Tachyon, the company allows banks to roll out credit offerings, including Buy-Now-Pay-Later, helps them with personal loan management, and provides expense management capabilities to customers.
It also helps banks manage customer payments and deposits, allowing them to embed financial offerings from new-age fintechs on to their banking platform.
Zeta now plans to extend its platform to wealth management by introducing investment and saving solutions for banks.
“Investment savings and growth will be a focus area. We aim to build a platform that will be an enabler for investments. For certain countries we might become a reseller (of investment products) and in some just continue to be a technology provider. However, we are still 12-14 months away from focusing on this vertical and haven’t taken active calls yet," said Turakhia.
Zeta will utilize almost 60% of the current fundraise from SoftBank by 2024 and hope to be operationally profitable by then, Turakhia said.
In the next year, the company will aim to help banks manage and provide secured and mortgage loans and boost capabilities for commercial banking on its platform by building feature sets around account receivables and payables, Turakhia said.
While there aren’t any immediate plans for acquisitions, the company may look at an inorganic route of growth to speed up its entry into international markets.
“At present, we are not actively looking at acquisitions. However, we may look at it in the future as a means to get new banking clients, solve for missing features in our technology stack, or as a way to accelerate our presence and operations in some international markets. For instance, markets such as China, Japan, and Korea have strong local players and require a high trust quotient. So, we may look at establishing potential joint ventures to expand faster in these markets," Turakhia said.
Zeta is Turakhia’s fourth startup. He has also founded domain and hosting business Directi in 1998, domain registry platform Radix in 2012, and business collaboration tool provider Flock (under brand name Nova) in 2014. He sold his first startup Directi, which he co-founded with his brother Divyank Turakhia, for $160 million in 2014.
Zeta also announced its partnership with French employee benefits giant Sodexo in 2019 and raised strategic funding from the company at a valuation of $300 million. Sodexo leverages Zeta’s technology to process payments in six international geographies.
Zeta’s ongoing contracts will help it achieve an annual run rate of $250-300 million by the end of the lifetime of these contracts, Turakhia said.
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