Digital payments company MobiKwik confirmed to MediaNama that is raising $150 million at a valuation of $1 billion. However, a spokesperson declined to give information about the investors in the company. This was first reported by TechCrunch. The publication added that the company plans to invest around $45 million the capital on growing user and merchant bases and expand its office base to 20 from the current six. In August 2016, Net1, a South African payment systems company, invested $40 million in MobiKiwk. With this deal, the company integrated Net1’s virtual card technology across all its wallets and extend its wallet services to all merchants. The company's total funding is $126.85 million. Note that in February, MobiKwik said that it would invest Rs 300 crore for expansion this year, including to acquire over 100 million users in an effort to catch up with Paytm. Currently, it has around 55 million users and has 1.5 million direct merchants. Lending Meanwhile, the spokesperson said that the funds will be used for developing other financial products including loans. Note that MobiKwik had started offering loans and was tying up with a number of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) for the same. The spokesperson added that the lending program was in pilot mode but declined to give further details on how many loans it gave out. The lending business will have two options: An EMI model and a loan model. The EMI model can be used for purchases such as laptops and mobile phones on online websites…
