India-based neobank, Jupiter, has raised $45 million in a Series B funding round which was led by Brazil-based Nubank, Global Founders Capital, and Matrix Partners India along with other investors as well.
It shows the increasing cooperation between Brazil and India as they share a lot of common issues and challenges and also marks one of the very few times when a Brazilian firm has invested in India. This latest round of investment values the company at $300 million as the company plans to use the new funds to ‘delight’ the customers, as it would like to call it.
“We believe that a bank account should be a smart account, where it gives you insight, shares personalized tips, and guides you through attaining some financial discipline,” said Jitendra Gupta, the founder of Jupiter.
The bank hopes to be a 100% digital bank and these are the latest wave of banks around the world as they look to reduce costs and also look to cater to the latest generation of banking customers who spend most of their time online and on their mobile. It also helps the bank to cut down the costs as they do not need to set up any branches to cater to the customers.
“Nubank and Jupiter share the mission of making banking the best experience possible for our customers, putting an end to all the bureaucracy and the pain in the current system. The Indian and Brazilian markets have many similarities and through this investment, we aim to support Jupiter in its growth path. We see a lot of potentials and are excited about joining them so early on their journey,” said David Vélez, founder and chief executive of Nubank.
Jupiter has not yet been opened to the public as yet as its 120 employees continue to work behind the scenes to onboard the 100,000 customers who are on the waiting list, the company said. It also said that it would be opened to the public in about a month. Jupiter looks to reach every nook and corner of the country and in a country where the penetration of mobile is much larger than the penetration of the banking system, it does make sense for the bank to go 100% digital so that it can bring on the underserved users to the platform. If they are able to achieve this in a simple, user-friendly manner with reliability, then they should be having a strong winner on their hands, is the general opinion among the analysts.
