ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 BharatPe Global Partners, a lending and digital payments startup, announced on Monday that it has signed a three-year agreement to become an official partner of the International Cricket Council (ICC). BharatPe will promote the association across broadcast and digital media, as well as conduct in-venue brand activations at all ICC tournaments till 2023, according to the deal.
Apart from integrating BharatPe’s brand presence across a variety of ICC events, this collaboration will allow the digital payments company to roll out initiatives to engage cricket fans and shop owners across the country.
“We believe that cricket is one of the most powerful unifiers, spanning geographies and languages.” This collaboration will allow us to strengthen our relationships with our existing merchants while also engaging millions of new, small merchants across India’, said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and CEO of BharatPe.
According to BharatPe, the ICC collaboration is an organic extension of the company’s existing brand strategy focusing on cricket. Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Sanju Samson, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Shubhman Gill are now brand ambassadors for the firm.
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BharatPe, a New Delhi-based startup formed in 2018, became an offline merchant acquirer by offering a QR code for UPI payments, a POS system for card acceptance, and loans to small businesses.
The ICC announced a three-year partnership with BharatPe in June 2021, with BharatPe being the ICC’s official partner. BharatPe will promote the association through broadcast and digital media, as well as execute in-venue brand activations at all ICC events till 2023, as part of the arrangement.
About BharatPe
In 2018, Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani co-founded BharatPe, which claims to have over 60 lakh merchants across 100 locations. Since its inception, the company has disbursed over 1,600 crore in loans to its merchants, and its point of sale (PoS) business handles over 1,200 crore in payments each month. Coatue Management, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Steadview Capital, Beenext, Amplo, and Sequoia Capital have contributed about $300 million in equity and loans to the company.
Shashvat Nakrani and Bhavik Koladiya formed BharatPe, with each owning 50% of the firm shares. Koladiya acted as the company’s public face and secured funds with investors. Then, three months later, Ashneer Grover joined. He was BharatPe’s third founder. However, with Grover’s arrival, BharatPe’s shareholding structure shifted. Grover was then given a 32% stake, Nakrani a 25.5% stake, and Koladiya the highest stake (42.5%).
However, until Sequoia came on board, Koladiya’s name was missing from the BharatPein founder’s list. This is due to the investors’ refusal to invest in a company whose co-founder was found guilty in a US court in 2015.
