Banking technology startup Zeta has raised $50 million in equity funding from US-based healthcare and financial services firm Optum.
Following this investment, the SoftBank-backed company’s valuation will rise to $2 billion, up from approximately $1.45 billion during its last funding round in 2021, according to founder and CEO Bhavin Turakhia.
Turakhia described this as a “strategic” funding round, emphasizing that Zeta will achieve profitability by March 2026. By then, the company anticipates reaching an annualized revenue run rate exceeding $100 million.
Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia and longtime associate Ramki Gaddipati, Zeta provides a cloud-native, full-stack banking technology platform with operations in India and the US. In India, private sector lender HDFC Bank is one of its major clients, leveraging Zeta’s technology to power its consumer fintech platform, PayZapp.
Currently, Zeta generates half of its revenue from its US operations, with the rest coming from India. According to Gaddipati, the US market is gradually contributing a larger share of its overall revenue based on its current growth trajectory.
“We have already invested $400 million in the firm, and the majority of it has gone towards building the technology infrastructure,” Turakhia said, adding that the firm expects to work closely with Optum going forward.
Before this, the Bengaluru-based firm raised $340 million from SoftBank and Mastercard.
“Over the past few years, we have supported over 25 million accounts on our cloud-native processing platform Tachyon and are on track to add 25 million more with contracts already in the works,” Turakhia added.
Turakhia did not specify a timeline for Zeta’s public listing but noted that it would depend on business growth and profitability factors.
Positioning itself as a future-ready platform, Zeta aims to enable credit on UPI for several major banks in India. Gaddipati expressed confidence that by 2030, credit on UPI infrastructure will represent a trillion-dollar business opportunity.
“While there is interest in the product, there are inhibitions given that there is an overall slowdown in unsecured lending, but we believe this product will grow in the future,” he said.
