Merisis partnered fintech startup Open raises $250k from PayU India’s Amrish Rau & Jitendra Gupta

Open will launch its platform in August and offer digital banking, bookkeeping, invoicing and other services to micro-entrepreneurs.PayU India CEO Amrish Rau and managing director Jitendra Gupta have together invested $250,000 in Bengaluru-based fintech startup Open, which is set to offer digital banking, bookkeeping, invoicing and other services to micro-entrepreneurs.The capital will be used for branding and expansion of the 12-member team, said Anish Achuthan, who cofounded Open with his wife, Mabel Chacko in May. Open will launch its platform in August. “Small businesses and entrepreneurs have started moving to app-based banking, and Open offers a whole range of services,” Rau told ET.“Anish himself has been in the fintech space for long and knows the sector very well.” The company is tying up with a private bank for backend account servicing, and has also partnered with a GST Suvidha provider (GSP) to offer small businesses help in filing invoices under the new GST regime.The company will also tie up with an NBFC to offer lending products to these businesses. “We want to provide a complete solution for micro-entrepreneurs, freelancers and startups with only a handful of employees to manage their business banking and also offer analytics. We aim to reach about 10,000 such small entrepreneurs in six months,” said Achuthan, a former PayU member. Achuthan and Chacko had earlier founded payments startup Zwitch, which was acquired by Citrus Pay in 2015.PayU itself is looking to build a digital banking solution, which Rau said was about 18 months away. Other fintech players, such as MobiKwik, are also set to offer loans and credit as well as other financial services to customers.Source: http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/fintech-startup-open-raises-250k-from-payu-indias-amrish-rau-jitendra-gupta/59572809