Slice picks up $50 million from Tiger Global, Japan’s GMO Ventures

Slice is looking to extend the financing round to raise at least another $50 million, which would take the round size to $100 million amid a wider slowdown in large-ticket size deals.

While the ongoing fundraise is still not yet closed, Slice is expected to be valued at over $1.5 billion, people aware of the matter said. The fintech firm turned a unicorn after raising $220 million in November last year from Tiger Global and Insight Partners. Besides US-based Tiger Global, Insight Partners and Moore Strategic Ventures have also invested in the latest tranche. Unicorns are privately held startups with a valuation of $1 billion or more.

According to Slice founder and CEO Rajan Bajaj, the funds have been raised to shore up its balance sheet, as well as to grow its payment business, with
entry into the unified payments interface (UPI), last month.

“Investors continue to back businesses which are doing well. We were well-capitalised from the previous round and have raised the round to grow our UPI product and shore up our balance sheets. Since it was a smaller transaction we were not in touch with a lot of investors,” Bajaj said.

At present, Slice has over 12 million users on its platform, with a dominant part of its customer base being salaried professionals present in metros, Bajaj said, adding that the company’s card issuance business continues to grow 10%-15% on a monthly basis.

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Founded in 2016, Slice focuses on new-age millennials and Gen Z customers, who have largely been refused credit cards due to inadequate credit scores. It also provides offer-discovery and discounts, through its commerce platform, Spark, which drives footfalls and purchases across its partner merchants. These merchant partners also bear the cost of the discount provided to Slice-card holders, according to the company.

Meanwhile, Slice has also restricted its ‘Pay-in-3’ feature to select credit-card holders amid macroeconomic changes. Sources said this is part of Slice’s cautious approach ahead of an impending slowdown even as this feature was used by a small portion of its customer base.

Slice currently operates an NBFC (non-banking finance company) arm and doles out co-branded credit cards to users in association with SBM Bank.

“We were profitable after tax in 2021, however we haven’t been profitable in the last few quarters, since we were scaling up. Our NBFC continues to be profitable and we will see our card business be profitable in the coming months,” Bajaj added.

“Slice is leading the way for innovation, customer experience, and growth in India’s rapidly developing payments market. We are delighted to continue our partnership with Rajan and his team as they improve and expand payment products with the goal of making money more relatable for the consumer,” said Alex Cook, partner, Tiger Global.