Perfios, a fintech startup that collects data to help financial institutions make lending decisions, on Wednesday, said it has raised $80 million in a new funding round by Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
The firm, which has a presence in India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, plans to continue its international expansion, while also exploring inorganic growth opportunities. The company will also continue to invest in its tech stack to power the end-to-end customer journeys across banking, insurance, and embedded commerce.
Perfios’ latest funding round comes less than a year after it raised $229 million in a Series D funding round led by private equity investor Kedaara Capital.
Last year, Krutrim, an AI startup established by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, became the first unicorn of 2024 after raising $50 million in its first funding round at a valuation of $1 billion.
Perfios was founded in 2008 by VR Govindarajan and Debashish Chakraborty, who had earlier co-founded the IT firm Aztecsoft, which was acquired by Mindtree for Rs 400 crore in 2008.
Perfios also counts Bessemer Venture Partners and Warburg Pincus among its investors. In 2022, the company had raised Rs 50 crore in debt from Stride Ventures and $70 million in a Series C funding round that reportedly valued the firm at around $400 million.
Kelvin Yu, Senior Managing Director and Head of Teachers’ Venture Growth in Asia, said: “We are excited about the growing opportunities within the B2B enterprise tech space in India…Perfios continues to invest behind its market-leading tech stack, adding new use cases that enable the company to be the trusted partner of choice to leading financial institutions globally.”
As part of the investment, Darius Vakil, director, Teachers’ Venture Growth, India is slated to join the board of Perfios as the nominee for Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
Indian SaaS accounts for a 5% share of the global market and is poised to reach 8% by 2027, per industry estimates. A recent report by Bessemer Venture Partners expects Indian SaaS to be worth $25 billion by 2025, currently valued at over $12 billion.
In January, Upekkha, a SaaS-focused accelerator fund, hit the first close of $15 million for its $40-million fund, with a lead investment from WestBridge Capital, while GetVantage, a Mumbai-based alternative lending platform, launched its $30-million SaaS Accelerator Fund II.
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is among Canada’s largest pension funds. In November 2023, it pumped $80 million into logistics unicorn Xpressbees, via TVG, marking its first investment in India.
India will account for 5-10% of OTPP’s assets in the next 15-20 years, as it looks to expand investments in areas such as infrastructure, healthcare and renewables, its CEO had told Reuters in late 2022. At the time, OTPP’s exposure to India was less than 2% of its $240 billion in global assets.
At the same time, the Canadian pension fund has paused direct investments in China since January 2023, citing geopolitical risks.
