Teachers’ Venture Growth, the high-stage and growth investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is investing $80 million in Perfios, an Indian fintech that provides real-time credit underwriting solutions to banks and other financial institutions. The new investment values Perfios at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
15-year-old Perfios, which raised a $229 million funding round in September, said it will use the new capital to boost its operations outside India and explore inorganic growth opportunities (read acquisitions.) The startup, which operates in nearly two dozen markets and has raised $464 million in primary and secondary transactions to date, plans to go public by next year, it said earlier.
Bangalore-based Perfios provides real-time data aggregation and analytics tools to financial institutions, enabling them to streamline their customer journeys and make more informed decisions. By leveraging advanced algorithms, Perfios helps banks, fintechs and other financial institutions as well as insurance companies reduce risk, detect fraud and improve the overall quality of their portfolios while enhancing their decision-making processes.
“Our business has seen steady year-on-year growth with steady improvement in the bottom line,” said Sabyasachi Goswami, CEO of Perfios, in a statement. “I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all our partners who trusted us throughout our journey.”
Perfios said it provides 8.2 billion data points to banks and other financial institutions each year to facilitate faster decision-making and processes 1.7 billion transactions annually with $36 billion in AUM. Perfius is the second unicorn from India this year.
The startup, whose clients include HDFC and Kotak Bank, generated revenue of $49.1 million in the financial year ended March last year.
Perfios credit decision tools. Image credits: AllianceBernstein
“We are excited about the growing opportunities in the B2B enterprise technology space in India and believe that Perfios is a best-in-class fintech-focused SaaS player,” said Kelvin Yu, Senior Managing Director and Head of Teachers’ Venture Growth in . Asia, in a statement.
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, one of Canada’s largest pension funds, has increased its interest in India in recent years. The fund, which also backed logistics unicorn Xpressbees last year, has invested more than $3 billion in India and plans to deploy a significant amount in the country by 2030 as part of its broader goal to deploy $300 billion in some key markets.
