MobikWik raised Series C funding of USD 12 Million

India:Mobile wallet is the most emerging technology across India. The National Payments Corporation of India introduced Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in April 2016. After complete implementation of UPI, the users will be allowed to make paymentswithout entering account detailsusing single identification process.

MobiKwik, a Gurgaon based payment app has recently received funding of around USD12 million from Japan's GMO Payment Gateway and Mediatek, a Taiwan based semi-conductor firm. In addition, existing investors of the company have also participated in this funding round. However, the company has also raised USD37 million from Tree Line Asia, Cisco Investments, American Express and Sequoia Capital for payment bank license from Reserve Bank of India (RBI).However, the company failed in getting the license.

The company is facing an unbending competition from Paytm (backed by Alibaba) and Freecharge (owned by Snapdeal). However, by April 2016, the company had around 25-30 million mobile app users, which is expected to increase in the coming years. The company is also planning to introduce offline payment mode.

According to TechSci Research analysis,this funding would support the company in its business expansion plans in the coming years that would eventually help the company to enhance its customer base.

With increasing awareness level of mobile wallet, rising internet users coupled with the increasing security measures is driving the mobile wallet market in India.Furthermore, Tier I cities which includes Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, etc., registered the highest number of mobile wallet users, while Tier II cities such as Jaipur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Indore, Patna, etc. are the emerging cities in terms of mobile wallet usage across the country.

According to the recent report published by TechSci Research, “India Mobile Wallet MarketForecast and Opportunities, 2020”, the Mobile Wallet market in India is projected to surpass USD6.6 billion by 2020. Banking sector is the largest end user segment followed by retail, telecom and transportation for mobile wallet market in 2016.