Matrix-backed Neobank Jupiter raises $44M

6th August 2021. Mumbai/Bengaluru: Mumbai and Bengaluru based neobanking start-up Jupiter announces it has raised $44M from investors in its Series B round, and is now valued north of $300M. This round takes place just one month after the invite-only launch of Jupiter's beta app, and gathers prominent global investors, being led by Brazil-based Nubank, Global Founders Capital, Sequoia Capital India and Matrix Partners India. Mirae Assets Venture also joined the round. All existing investors, including Addition Ventures, Tanglin VC, Greyhound, 314 Capital and Beenext, participated pro-rata in the round.

Founded by industry veteran Jitendra Gupta in 2019, Jupiter raised a total of $25M in seed funding and Series A rounds while still in stealth mode. The company is a 100% digital bank that aims to fix what's broken in the traditional banking system, through a customer-obsessed mentality and continuous innovation. One of Jupiter's first offerings is a savings account bundled with features that aim to simplify money management. The product was co-created with a strong community of users that suggested features they wanted in a banking app.

The beta app is currently available to 100k+ users who'd signed up to the waitlist and will be rolled out to the general public later this year. "The initial product traction has been phenomenal. Early users are loving the simplicity of the product, and the kind of gold-standard service they'd come to expect from top consumer internet companies,' Gupta said. With the latest round of funding now in, he plans to hire more talent and scale up the business. His long-term goal is to make delightful banking ubiquitous and make Jupiter a day-to-day finance app for consumers.

Gupta's vision of building Jupiter to become an everyday finance app has attracted global investors, who've been tracking the startup's progress since its inception. In particular, Nubank and Jupiter are united by their vision of serving up a consumer-centric product backed by an unmatched customer service experience.

Second-time entrepreneur Jitendra Gupta, who had sold Citrus Payments to PayU in a $130M deal in 2016 and founded Lazypay during his PayU stint, said: "I'm excited to welcome Nubank as Jupiter's partner in the new banking revolution. They have scaled up so well in Brazil, and we have a lot to learn from them. We'll take best practices from them, and work together to build an even stronger focus on customer service and products. With this partnership, we will fast forward our execution journey.'

"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 their growth path. We see a lot of potential and are excited about joining them so early on their journey', said David Vélez, CEO and Founder of Nubank.

Ashish Dave, CEO of Mirae Asset Venture Investments (India), said, "Neo-banks like Jupiter are exactly what India needs: someone who can deliver simple, extensive & high-quality digital banking in a cost-efficient way. Think a customer experience so good that it feels like making privileged banking available to folks who dread branch visits and long waiting times. Banking needs to meet customers where they are, and serve them in the most intuitive manner possible. Jiten and his stellar tech team have built just that, on top of the existing banking stack.'

"We are highly impressed by Jitendra and his team and love their vision for building India's leading digital consumer bank. India deserves a digitally native bank that offers the product experience of a consumer fintech and the product offering of a bank,' added Roel Janssen, Partner at Global Founders Capital.

"Jupiter's setting the benchmark for ease of on-boarding and usage in the neobanking space. Jiten's deep expertise in the space combined with the company's customer-obsessed approach sets them apart. We're privileged to be partners on this journey and excited to recommit in this round,' said Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India.

About Jupiter:
Jupiter aims at transforming banking in India. It offers a 100% digital savings bank account with in-built money management features like real-time spend insights, tracking liquid assets across bank accounts, personalised savings goals, and sending/receiving funds via UPI. More information can be found online at www.jupiter.money

About Jupiter's Investors:
Jupiter has raised funds from Nubank, Global Founders Capital, Mirae Asset Venture Investments, Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India, Greyhound Capital, 3One4 Capital, Rocket Internet, BeeNext, Tanglin Venture Partners, Falcon Edge Capital's Navroz Udwadia, DST Global's Rahul Mehta, Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and Cred's Kunal Shah. Zerodha's CEO Nitin Kamath, Pine Labs' Amrish Rau, Freecharge's Sandeep Tandon and Smile Group co-founder Manish Vij have also invested in their personal capacity.

About Matrix Partners India:
Matrix Partners India is an investment firm with approximately $1 billion under management. Founded in 2006, the firm invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer and enterprise market at the seed, early and early growth stages. Matrix India has invested in several market leading financial services companies, such as, Razorpay (payments and SME Neobank), Five Star Business Finance (SME lending), OfBusiness (credit led B2B marketplace), Mswipe (mobile POS), Ola Financial Services (digital-first fin. products), Jupiter (consumer Neobank), OneCard (mobile-first credit card) and Liquiloans (P2P lending).

Other marquee investments include Ola (mobility), Dailyhunt (mobile local language platform), Ola Electric (electric vehicles), Stanza Living (tech enabled student housing platform), Country Delight (D2C dairy & fresh foods brand), DealShare (social commerce platform), Zupee (leading skill-based gaming app) and Bijnis (digital B2B marketplace) among others. Matrix India has advisory offices in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Matrix Partners has a global network of funds investing in the US, China and India, with approximately $5 billion under management. Further information is available at www.matrixpartners.in. To know more about our investment philosophy, check out the #MatrixMoments podcast series.