Zeta Becomes a Unicorn with $250 Million Softbank-led Funding 

Zeta, a startup that helps banks and fintech firms launch products, now is the newest farm to join the coveted unicorn status after closing a financing round.

Zeta, as a company, is working on payments from core to the edge. The algorithms to form factors. The applications to solutions. Zeta has built an Omni Stack for Financial Institutions (FIs) for debit, credit, prepaid, loans, authentication and Fraud and Risk Management (FRM).

The banking tech firm, co-founded by veteran Indian entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia, said on Monday it has raised $250 million in a Series D Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, confirmed by a “TechCrunch” report from mid-April. Their existing investor “Sodexo” also participated in the round.

The new round valued the startup, which has offices in Bangalore and Dubai, at $1.45 billion. That’s up from the $300 million valuation that Zeta reported in the second half of 2019. 

In business, a “UNICORN” is a term used when a privately held startup company is valued at over $1 billion. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent such successful ventures.

The startup today serves 10 banks and 25 fintech firms, and plans to reach more clients and increase their profit.

Zeta has developed a technology stack that helps it engage with banks and fintech startups, as well as other online consumer platforms. Banks, which have licenses to offer financial services to customers, use Zeta’s cloud-native API and SDKs to launch credit cards, debit cards, loans and offer improved experience to customers, and also work with fintechs.