Oxyzo Financial Services obtains $200 million in VC round with a $1 billion valuation, Series A joins the unicorn club
- ByStartupStory | March 23, 2022
Oxyzo Financial Services said on March 23 that it has raised $200 million in Series A funding at a $1 billion valuation, making it the highest first-round financing by an Indian business. Alpha Wave led the unicorn round, which was joined by Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, and Creation Investments.
Oxyzo began as the lending platform of OfBusiness, offering cash flow and matching working capital finance for SMEs in manufacturing and subcontracting to purchase new materials. It expanded its product line and customer base to include SMEs, mid-sized corporations, and new-economy businesses. It manages $350 million in assets and claims to have been profitable since its beginning.
The funds will be used to organically and inorganically expand Oxyzo’s broader digital financial services, including scaling the supply chain marketplace, creating novel fixed-income products for SMEs, and scaling additional fee-based business lines, such as debt capital markets and securities. This will also be the first time in India that a husband-wife team has developed two unicorns.
Existing investors Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global Management, and SoftBank led a $325 million round for business-to-business commerce and financing platform OfBusiness. OfBusiness’ valuation has more than doubled in the last year, to $5 billion, thanks to an unparalleled funding boom. In April, it was valued at $800 million, then $1.5 billion, $3 billion, and $5 billion in July, September, and December.
Following the outbreak, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) used interest rate cuts and other instruments to inject liquidity into the economy. The recovery of small enterprises coincided with the recovery of the Indian economy, and lending to SMEs increased. The pandemic has also accelerated the adoption of digital financial services in India, with SMEs appreciating the ability to spend less time monitoring their finances by utilizing online tools available on fintech platforms. More small business owners are turning to fintech for working capital and other loans since small loans can be approved in as little as a day.
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