Payments technology firm Escrowpay set to raise Rs 120 crore

NEW DELHI: Escrowpay, a payments technology company, is looking to raise an additional Rs 120 crore as growth capital, said a senior executive.

“We have raised 2 rounds in 2022 as part of our pre A2. We are already in talks with various investors to raise an additional Rs 120 crore as growth capital,” said Ashwin Chawwla, founder & MD at Escrowpay, a pioneer in digital escrow solutions.

Escrowpay has set a a target to reach 10,000+ SMEs over next 12 months and offer them financial optimisation through our digital escrow services.

“We are expanding our reach and footprint through organic and inorganic spins. We work with 5 banks at the moment and onboarding more as we speak. Besides our own distribution efforts we also see bank partners as a relevant and exciting end node for distributing our solutions,” said Chawwla.

The company’s transaction processing volume (TPV) went up 8X. Team size grew by 3X. SME count went up by 5X. And its average size of transaction is a high of Rs 750,000. “Our TPV target for this financial year is Rs 10,000 crore,” said Chawwla.

Escrowpay is in the process of launching cross border payments stack with leading partners and senior executives at the company are hopeful that this will add substantial value to all its stakeholders and clients.

When asked what prompted him to launch Escrowpay, Chhawla said, “A few years ago before launching Escrowpay, in my previous entrepreneurial avatar I was executing a $500 million land transaction (the largest by far in Mumbai) where escrow was used to remove high trust deficit between parties. That was my ‘Eureka moment’ on why only large and listed companies get to use this product and how we can bring it down or democratise it to every SME/emerging business in India. 65 million SMEs struggle to get paid on time. Rs 200,000 crore is stuck in delayed payments.”

“India contract enforceability index is low, litigation never really is an option. Moreover, moving contingent money across rails and Escrow banking is archaic, completely branch driven and manual and there was a crying need for launching a solution that was seamless, digital and agile. That’s when I thought and decided that someone had to do the heavy lifting and thus began the initial sketch of launching Escrowpay- India’s first digital escrow platform, offering anytime and anywhere escrow solutions for businesses,” he said.