Freecharge is an Indian

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

company based in

Gurugram Gurgaon (pronunciation: �ʊɽɡãːw, officially named Gurugram (pronunciation: �ʊɾʊɡɾaːm, is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest of the nationa ...

. It allows users to pay bills such as electricity, gas and telephone, as well as recharge mobile, broadband, DTH and metro cards. In addition, it enables the users to invest in

mutual fund A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV i ...

s and get credit through Freecharge EMI. On 8 April 2015,

Snapdeal Snapdeal is an Indian e-commerce company, based in New Delhi, India. It was founded in February 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. Snapdeal was one of the largest online marketplaces in India. Snapdeal targets the value e-commerce segment, ...

acquired Freecharge in what was referred to as the second biggest takeover in the Indian e-commerce sector at the time, after the buy out of

Ibibo Ibibo Group is an online Indian travel organisation founded in January 2007 by Ashish Kashyap. The company is a subsidiary of MakeMyTrip (MMT) Limited, which owns a 100% stake in Ibibo Group. Group owns the B2C online travel aggregator Goib ...

by rival MakeMyTrip. The deal was for approximately US$400 million in cash and stock. On 27 July 2017,

Axis Bank Axis Bank Limited, formerly known as UTI Bank (1993–2007), is an Indian banking and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It sells financial services to large and mid-size companies, SMEs and retail businesses. As ...

acquired Freecharge for $60 million.

History

Freecharge was founded in August 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon. After receiving

seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

of an undisclosed amount from Tandon Group and

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...

in 2010, the company secured

Series A funding A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

of ₹200 million from Sequoia Capital in 2011. In November 2012, the company claimed to be doing online recharge of ₹6 million on a daily basis, translating to ₹2.19 billion a year. In 2011, Freecharge was named one of the most promising

technology startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

s from India by Pluggd.in. On 1 September 2014, Freecharge received $33 Million Series B Funding from Sequoia Capital, Sofina and Ru-Net, which was one of the biggest fund raising by an Indian technology startup. On 6 February 2015, Freecharge further raised $80 million from Hong Kong-based fund Tybourne Capital Management and SF-based fund Valiant Capital Management and existing investors. Freecharge is building an advertising platform that will capture online and offline purchase behavior and brand preferences of consumers, by offering incentives and discount coupons to users to transact on its platform. On 8 April 2015, Indian e-commerce firm

acquired Freecharge for ₹2800 crore (US$400 million) in cash and stock. In March 2017,

announced Jason Kothari will be the new CEO of Freecharge.

decided to invest $20 million into the same. April 2016, FreeCharge rolls out Chat and Pay – feature in its app where merchants and customers can connect over chat and just initiate payments. On 18 May 2017, Jasper Infotech, which owns and operates Freecharge, decided to invest ₹22 Crore more in the company, making it its third such investment. On 27 July 2017, it was officially reported that

bought out Freecharge for $60 million. On 22 March 2017, Ankit Khanna was appointed as COO. Prior to this, Khanna was the chief product officer of the company. March 30, 2018, FreeCharge enables BHIM UPI on its Digital Wallet platform. On 27 August 2019, Freecharge launched Digital Credit Cards.

References

{{Mobile payments Financial services companies established in 2010 Online financial services companies of India Companies based in Gurgaon Internet properties established in 2010 2010 establishments in Haryana Privately held companies of India Mobile payments in India Axis Bank