FreeCharge raises $33 million Series B, builds transactional ad-platform for India

FreeCharge, the online platform for recharge, utility payments, promotions and couponing, has raised 33 million USD in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital, Sofina and RuNet. Freecharge is building an advertising platform that captures online and offline purchase behavior and brand preferences of consumers, by offering incentives and coupons to users to transact on its platform.

The company is witnessing rapid growth. Mobile transactions on the Freecharge app have grown ~30x since the beginning of 2014, and the company has more than 10 million registered users. FreeCharge also recently acquired Preburn, in addition to Wishberg, its first acquisition.

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director of Sequoia Capital India Advisors Pvt. Ltd., said “Freecharge is creating a unique new category, an advertising platform with the “consumption graph” for the most valuable online consumers. We are very impressed with the team’s execution and the rapid growthand engagement of users on the platform.”

Galina Chifina, Investment Officer at ruNet, speaking about the funding, said, “Freecharge is one of the most exciting companies in our Indian portfolio with a highly innovative business model that has global appeal and scalability. We are happy to participate in the new round to support the new initiatives the company has embarked upon. The team has done an awesome job to position Freecharge among the leaders of the mobile recharge/payment and data analysis market in India and we believe the new round will help the company to grow even faster”

Alok Goel, CEO of FreeCharge, speaking about the Series B round of funding, said, “We have been able to assemble one of the best start-up teams in the country and are leading the mobile internet revolution in India. 70% of our transactions come from mobile platforms and we are growing more than 400% year on year.”

Kunal Shah, Co-Founder, FreeCharge, speaking about the development said, “We are innovating at breakneck pace in the mobile app ecosystem and this round of funding will go a long way in establishing FreeCharge as a household brand in the country”.

Sandeep Tandon, Co-Founder, FreeCharge, speaking about the development said, “In addition to the confidence shown by the investors we are most excited about our team.  We have assembled a truly a world class team  with  the best of Technology and business innovation.  I am just delighted that we will be on this journey together”.

The company has added Gokul Rajaram, Koh Boon Hwee, Dhiraj Rajaram to its board of advisors. Each of these advisors are visionaries and industry leaders.

Gokul Rajaram is known as father of Google AdSense, Ex Head of Monetization Product for Facebook and currently Head of Product at Square, said, "FreeCharge has built aunique and innovative advertising platform that's great for both consumers andadvertisers. My experiences building ad systems at Google and Facebook have shown me that next-generation ad platforms need to deliver value on both side of the equation, and FreeCharge does this in an elegant and powerful way."

Dhiraj Rajaram CEO of muSigma said “I was amazed at the way FreeCharge is building innovative marketing solutions. Data is the fundamental building block on which next wave of solid businesses will be built. FreeCharge has huge potential to be pioneer in this space”

Koh Boon Hwee, speaking about the development said, "The FreeCharge business model is absolutely a novelty.  It has not been tried anywhere else in the world. The model builds on top of a massive telecom consumer base and can certainly be replicated by the freecharge team in various other countries and continents".

FreeCharge is an exclusive online promotions partner for several well known brands. Amit Jatia, Vice Chairman, Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt Ltd (McDonald’s India – West & South), who’s restaurants use the Freecharge platform said, “ FreeCharge provides us with a unique value proposition for driving promotions. They have been able to drive a significant number of customers from the online world into our restaurants with a performance tracking that is at par with online digital advertising.”