Apis | Partners
The investment in EPS is a landmark transaction for Apis, and is exactly the type of opportunity that drove us to establish Apis: providing catalytic equity capital to highly entrepreneurial financial infrastructure businesses in growth markets, fostering economic growth and enabling greater financial inclusion” said Matteo Stefanel, Apis Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “We are extremely pleased to be supporting the EPS team, who has an impressive track-record of execution, and we look forward to working together on the next phase of the Company’s growth.”
“ATMs represent vital last-mile financial services infrastructure for many in India, especially those living in rural areas; but despite the high dependence on cash, there are currently only 15 ATMs per 100,000 adults in the country, far less than in other growth markets,” said Apis Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Udayan Goyal. “The sector is growing rapidly thanks to the Indian Government’s recent emphasis on financial inclusion and high growth of card-holders as a result of the new Indian card scheme RuPay. We believe EPS is ideally positioned to deliver exciting growth.”
Earlier Aavishkaar, Aavishkaar GoodWell and FMO (Netherlands based developmental financial institution) invested $20 million in the Company’s first three rounds of funding. “Our investment in EPS was driven by our belief in Mani Mamallan’s leadership and his team and also the vision shared by Mani with us, as EPS at that time was just a concept note. With the new round of capital infusion EPS is well placed to deliver technology lead Financial Inclusion effectively across India,” said Vineet Rai, Founder and Managing Director of Aavishkaar.
Speaking on behalf of FMO, Anneloes Dros said “We supported EPS for their strong leadership and management qualities the team possesses and operating with significant growth potential in a rapidly growing Indian economy. This also supports FMO’s financial inclusion agenda of operating financial services in a semi urban and rural economy.”
“The ATM Management industry in India is entering a high-growth phase, backed by strong Governmental push towards financial inclusion, RBI allowing banks to offer all their products and services through their ATM network, and impending rollouts of Small Finance Banks and Payment Banks. We believe that the sector will head towards consolidation, with players expanding their service offering and also entering into new segments in the payment spectrum,” says Meenal Dutia, who leads the financial services practice for Investment Banking at Intellecap which acted as the exclusive advisor to EPS on the fund raise transaction.