ItzCash, which was founded in 2006, had so far raised about $51 million from Matrix Partners, Intel Capital and Lightspeed. ItzCash Managing Director Naveen Surya said the investors received returns between 3x to 4x of their initial investments.
The Nasdaq-listed Ebix is a global supplier of on-demand software and e-commerce services to the insurance, financial, e-governance and healthcare industries, and currently operates in 40 countries, including India.
Surya said the investment will allow the Indian company to cater to Ebix clients beyond India and open cross-selling opportunities to sell each other’s complementary services to clients.
“This partnership with Ebix will help us to deepen our foray into all kinds of financial services such as credit, insurance, healthcare and investments to accelerate our growth momentum, even outside India,” Surya said.
ItzCash said it turned profitable in the financial year 2016-17. While the company initially started with prepaid card and wallet products, it has since expanded into businesses such as remittances, financial services and corporate products. The company also has cloud-based solutions at about 75,000 stores across 3,000 cities and towns, wherein the kirana store also enables bill payments and money transfer.
“In ItzCash, we found attributes that none of their peers had – market penetration across 3000 cities, 75000 + brick & mortar distribution outlets, CAGR of approximately 35 per cent, and the only company who was profitable amongst all its peers. With one of India’s most prominent business houses, the Essel group deciding to align their interests with Ebix, the decision to invest in ItzCash became easy for us,” Ebix CEO Robin Raina said in a statement.
Surya had told earlier that the company had plans of considering IPO options.
“The IPO plan is still open, but we will now discuss with our new partners on when to go ahead with it,” Surya said.
The company will also look at new partnerships this year, including investments, joint ventures and acquisitions. It recently invested in Bengaluru-based fintech startup Finly, which works on expense management for corporates.
Source: Economic Times